Furry Mama is relieved.

When your children have four legs and fur and don't speak terribly great English, it's very easy to over worry about them. Furry Mama has been doing precisely that about Minty Mutt. It's a sad fact of life, that furry children are likely to die before their Furry Parents, but that doesn't make it any easier to accept. Minty Mutt is now nine years and two months old, so in human years he's seventy-three and he's definitely been feeling his age. Since he's been on Metacam, the anti-inflammatory painkiller, he is loads better, but Freda Fretter has been worrying Furry Mama that perhaps it is just disguising his pain, and he has been getting worse without her realising. Well today was Mint's annual check-up and injection day, so it was with some trepidation that Furry Mama got his car ramp out, to take him to the vets. Fortunately, Minty loves going to the vets and in the car, so was quite happy to get a move on, when Baggy realised that she had been faffing about so much trying to decide what to wear, that she was late!

The excellent news is that the chief-honcho vet, who has met Mint a few times and prescribed the Metacam, is delighted with him. He agrees that Minty has found his inner puppy. He also reassured Freda, that Metacam could not mask the pain if it were something really serious, like a bad back. He also said that his boss, years ago, used to swear by the stuff and took it himself! He reckoned that it was better than anything the Doctor prescribed him. The vet did say that he hadn't tried it himself though! Clever Bird then asked for three large bottles of the stuff - while promising a) not to over dose Mint and b) not to take it herself; although Baggy is seriously tempted!!! Haha.

Furry Mama was so pleased with the news that she decided to take advantage of being in beautiful Long Melford and take Minty for a long walk - just as it decided to absolutely chuck it down. Baggy's faffing had resulted in her putting on a nice outfit, suitable for a warm, DRY, spring day. An hour later Minty and Baggy were totally soaked and Baggy was positively frozen. Good reason to go and get a cappuccino in Baggy's favourite café. Furry Mama did mention that they were a bit soggy, but Clever Bird had failed to notice the black river-mud dripping from Minty's under-belly, from where he had dived in, nearly taking Baggy with him, as he was still on the flexi-lead. But there is a reason why it's Baggy's favourite café; not only do they do the best cappuccino going, they didn't mind the wet, black water that we left all over the floor - well at least it was a hard surface,  not a carpet.

Home again, at least Furry Mama remembered to dry the lad off, so The Domestic Goddess didn't have to swear at her when he sprawled out on the lovely new, old, Afghani rug. Fire lit, (eventually, it took over an hour to get it going), just in time for Hormonal Hannah to give Baggy a full-on hot flush. Baggy fed. Creative Clara has tweeted (she now has over three hundred followers - who'd have thunked it?), written her latest www.channillo.com Journal Series entry (and realised that she had another new subscriber to it), written this blog and will shortly be getting on with her novel. It's definitely an indoor day. Tea required...........