Prickly!

Many years ago my mum bought a sickly looking little cactus because she felt sorry for it. She put it on her sunny kitchen window sill and the cactus grew and grew and eventually produced beautiful cerise flowers in a ring around the top.

The flowers lasted for about five minutes then it went back to being just plain ole prickly again. But my mum loved it. She called it Big Ben.

When she died ten years ago, I brought the cactus home. It grew two more prickly lumps and it carried on flowering for about five minutes every year.

The picture below was taken a few years ago before the third appendage made an appearance. It was much smaller then.

It got in the way, prickled people (and curious kittens) and gathered dust. Beloved tried vacuuming it and several hundred spikes disappeared up the Dyson tube. It had to be propped up against the window to stop it hurling itself in the sink.

All I said was, “I think I’ll see if someone would like The Cactus.” I made a few enquiries.

I might have said, “I really wish I could throw it away, but my conscience would prickle (ouch) me.”

I went downstairs a little while ago and noticed the kitchen seemed brighter. And then I saw it – or rather I didn’t see it.

“But I thought you wanted me to get rid of it,” he said. “I thought you meant you wanted it to go, but you didn’t want to be the one to do it.”

Well I sort of did, but I still feel bad. I would far rather have seen it go to a new home.

With Indy’s many health issues, I always imagined that our next emergency dash to the vet would be with him, but Fizz had other ideas.

Last weekend she started throwing up – and wailing something awful. Then I saw blobs of blood in her litter tray and more when she tried to use it. Frightening. We rushed her off to the vet where she was examined and given an antibiotic injection (would you like an injection or would you rather give her pills? I tried giving her a worming pill not so long ago and barely lived to tell the tale. Ridiculous when I used to have to give our last poor old cat a combination of about a dozen pills a day with no problems). I opted for the injection.

Then she had a steroid injection. The first needle took her by surprise and she merely had time to spit. She was more prepared the second time and clawed (me) with all four feet and bit my finger. But despite her being scared and feeling ill, I only had two small scratches.

The next day she was fine. We assume as there appeared to be no infection present that she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. The bland recovery diet certainly agreed with her – now she turns her nose up at bog-standard cat food unless I mix chicken in with it. Sigh.

She’s going out in the garden now, but doesn’t linger unless Indy is out there with her.

They say a bad storm is headed our way - Fizz knows where she's going to hide.

Take care and stay safe!