Knight II in trouble

Song of the day: “Rescue me” by Bell, Book and Candle. It’s an oldie, but good regardless.

Well, I’m going to start with the bad news first. The Knight is in hospital, and is now, 24 hours after he got there, still not out of the woods. *sigh* It all happened yesterday morning after they had breakfast. I’d just locked my pack up so I could go down to the house without the lot of them following me inside (I noticed Knight lying on the floor, looking up somewhat disturbed but didn’t pay much mind.) where mom showed me how middle sister made some wonderful yoga mats that she wants to try sell at the markets. It looks very nice, so I do think that they’ll work out.
But anyway, when I got back big brother was standing on my porch, asking if Knight had been in a fight. I said he hadn’t. At least not that I knew of, and went in to check what happened.
I didn’t see anything obvious, but he seemed out of sorts, and perhaps a tad stiff and swollen. I didn’t like the look at all, and called middle sister to ask what the symptoms for Angie were when she had a torqued stomach.
In the end I decided to play it safe and took him in the car to see the Vet. It was a torque d stomach, the x-ray showed, and after some debate about his chances, we did decide for the vet to operate on him, and “unknot” his stomach, so to speak. He has a 50/50 percent chance.
The operation took about an hour and a half, and I could come and visit him later in the day.

Once at home, trying not to worry, we headed into the yard where plants needed to be watered and harvests gathered. Since we were at it anyway, I also gathered some stuff for the vet and her assistant, partly because the vet was nice enough to assure me that there was absolutely no hurry for us to pay Knight’s bill. Got a variety of three veggies together which, after a quick lunch, we took along to the hospital.
Knight was awake, but not happy, in fact he was only half awake as he put his nose in my hand.
I hated leaving him there for the night, but alas, it could not be helped.
It felt infinitely strange to sleep in the bed without Knight hogging the bed, I tell ya.

Went down to see him again today, and he was out and about, basically waiting for me. I was allowed to take him for a walk and I sat with him on my lap for about half an hour, which had him sleep for a bit at least. Again leaving him behind, but I had to do some work on the computer, and spent the remainder of the afternoon working in the kitchen. I made four strawberry cheesecakes, (am going to try them at the market) and two batches of patties (also a try for the market. If anyone of you comes round there, do drop by and try them out) which took longer then I’d intended. Totally forgot to eat meat, darn it.

But anyway, I was in time at the vet’s, meaning I could take him for another walk, and then convince him to lie down and relax a bit. He’s way too lethargic, I think. I wonder if the vet put him on valium, or something, to keep him from touching his stitches. I’m going to ask tomorrow morning.

Had to pick up some veggies for the dogs, a donation, and then once we got home it was time to cook. Didn’t have time for anything elaborate, so I stuck with only veggies, which Sally had already cut. This does, of course mean that I am now starving, when it is way too late to do anything about that. Gawd!

Grandpa has been busy preparing stuff for the kitchen roof, so, with a little luck we might get round to that after Monday. Though there is a chance of rain, it is very likely that we’ll be going to market on Sunday. Well, big brother and me, anyway. Cousin Ed will be staying home to welcome tenant’s family, who’re coming over for a visit.

Which reminds me, tenant came home today, thankfully. Her urine tube was removed from her kidney. She is no longer able to have one, due to the fact that she drank too little and her age. It is now permanently damaged. Only plus is, that now the kidney stones have also halved in size. *sigh* She was in good spirits when she got home.

The first edit was finished yesterday evening, so today we started over, checking all the big changes so we can print the book out and catch all those errors that you just don’t see on the computer. I gotta say, that despite everything, we’re making good time.

Speaking of time…I need to get to bed. I’m getting way too little sleep again.

The '20s

Song of the day: “Explosions” by Ellie Goulding. Still cool, but I do admit to liking something new in my head by now. *sigh* I gotta say that with the way songs are always in my head (I had Gene Kelly’s Good Morning in my head yesterday) life could very well be a musical. I’ll be singing something at least eight times a day. Not to mention that I’ll two-step this way, shake my booty that way, and on the overall don’t stand still for a full minute. Hah.

First off, let’s talk tenant. Caregiver had to take her to her urologist appointment yesterday, at which point it was decided that she was going to have to stay at the hospital because her urine tube has gotten dislodged in her kidney, so they have to fix that. Luckily she doesn’t mind all that much. In fact, she kinda likes it there, and appears to be in good spirits. Phew. Luckily. We have no idea how that is going to go now, whether she’s over there for an extended stay, or if she’ll be back soon. We’re hoping on the latter, because her family is due to arrive on Saturday/Sunday, and it would be a pity if she has to meet them after a year while lying in a hospital bed.

Then of course, Sally has been feeling awful ever since her last appointment with her local doctor, and it got so bad today that caregiver took her along to the hospital while she went there to check on tenant. Again, several hours in the ER, only to hear that all was well and that she could just take some painkillers. Double phew.

Bad news. Alexander, mom’s Cocker Spaniel has been feeling poorly and has been diagnosed with Hepatitis. Poor puppy. He’s still very young, though, and it is a finite problem that should heal within 6 months at least, according to Wikipedia.

But okay, let’s get to the normal stuff. Chores and such had to be done, of course. What do you think? Should I elaborate on my hanging the laundry just so? Would that be okay? I could, you know. Hmmm. Well, okay…I won’t. Hah.

Had to go to town yesterday to get a few bare necessities, and found a bathing suit for five bucks. Wow. That’s absolutely awesome. I haven’t been able to find a proper (the legs not cut out up to my armpits, a cleavage not down to my navel, and not an open back, thank you very much) suit perfect for the purpose of swimming. Yay. In the future, when we go to Funny Beach Marbella, I’ll be able to take it along and go for a swim. That is going to be absolutely awesome in summer.

Planted three small citrus trees…well, transferred them into bigger pots, and put them beside Sally’s place. Looks absolutely adorable. In particular with the planter across from it, filled with berry bushes and strawberry plants.

Did some work on the kitchen. Settled on the beams for the roof, and sorted out the boarding that is going to make up the ceiling. We’ll have enough, so it’s not going to be a problem. Now all we need to do before we put it in, is put a primer on the boarding and then paint them in a nice color. Same goes for the beams, which grandpa sanded and varnished today. Yay.

Editing has been going slow lately, our focus a little scattered, I’m thinking. What with everything going on, that is not all that strange, I think. Still, we’re well past half, only twenty pages or so away from the end. Of course this is only the first edit, we still have at least two of ‘m to do before we can send it back to the publisher, but that’s okay. I don’t mind. I’m seeing a lot of the ‘20s by revisiting Kit and Nick, and it’s fun. Who’s have thought that I’d ever get to expand on it, huh? If it turns out that the publisher doesn’t want it after all, I just might consider turning it into a full length at some point. It’s good.

Today. Well, it’s Wednesday, so that means Spanish lessons. First, though, I was alone this morning. Big brother and grandpa had to go to the village to get old bread for the dogs, Cousin Ed had to fix a fiasco with spare keys that were made wrong in town, Sally was in bed feeling miserable, and tenant was at the hospital, of course. So I did laundry, fed the dogs, and then rushed through breakfast while going over my “homework”. Then Sally turned out to be in genuine pain, which had me talk with her for some time about her medication and how she was unable to keep track of it all, and how we could find a solution We did find one, since grandpa is willing to pitch in, but it did mean that big brother and I were once again late to Spanish lesson.

It did go well, though. Went over homework of the past three weeks, practiced some new stuff, and got new homework for next week, so, yay. Had to drive through to pick up a donation. Books, baby. Loads and loads of books…but regretfully they’re mostly about politics, philosophy and economics. *sigh* Can’t have everything, can you? Did find a few nice ones about psychology and grammar.

Supper involved broccoli soup, because we had two bags of the stuff in the fridge, rapidly turning bad. Worked out well, in particular with the fresh bread that we had for it.
Well, that’s it for now. I’m all out of words…well, not really, but you get my drift, dontcha. Hah. Gotta go.

Fun part

Song of the day: “Somebody I used to know” by Gotye. Still an awesome song. Had it in my head yesterday at the market, while today I had some of Ellie Goulding’s “Explosions”, which is absolutely beautiful. You should look it up on youtube one of these days.

Right. The weekend is over and we’re back to the grind on Monday…well, grind, you know what I mean, right? Let’s start with Saturday and see where we end up from there, shall we?
Saturday morning I was basically running behind on everything. I woke a little late due to the evening before. We had to wait until the suggested painkiller worked for Sally, because if it didn’t, we would have to call for an ambulance after all. Since it started working in about 40 minutes, we luckily weren’t forced to do any such thing. Instead we went to our respective beds around three in the morning, most of us more than a little disgruntled at the alarm at nine in the morning. Grrr.

There were the usual chores, of course, laundry over my morning coffee, followed by preparing and dividing the dog food for our boisterous pack. Seriously, when we feed them in the mornings they act as if they haven’t seen a single bite of food in more than a week, spoiled lot. Seriously, if it were up to them, we’d have to feed them three times a day, and have them look like barrels on paws, for crying out loud. Even now, with one meal a day, some of them look like hippos.
The Labs, Chaos and Tadaika definitely need to be hauled away from the food before they suck it all up like the proverbial vacuum cleaners. *sigh* Silly dogs. Hah.

Focusing on the edit was rather difficult due to the short night, but we managed a few pages. Same went for last night for that matter. I was seriously running on fumes and my foot…yikes. Stupid thing was of absolutely no use last night…or more accurately, it felt as if I’d been walking on glass most of the day…which I hadn’t, thank you very much.

But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, I was still telling of Saturday, right? Where was I?
Hmmm. After breakfast and the daily session on the computer, we headed on out into the yard for harvests as well as weeding. Boy, are those weeds growing fast. Some of the friggin’ Malva is up to my neck, and the grass…well, I’m not even going to be talking about that. Let’s just say that it’s probably going to take us all summer just to get all those weeds toned down.

There was lunch (managed some meat again, Saturday and today, so “there’s a good Sammie”. Still hard to eat the darn stuff. *sigh* Will it ever get easier, you suppose?) having a short chat with tenant and Sally and then…well, we had to go out for a small donation, from which we didn’t get back until after seven. Then of course we had to clean up the Land Rover and load her up for Sunday’s market, which took forever too. What followed was cooking supper, desert of fresh strawberries mixed with milk, preparing lunch for the next day, and then finally, around nine, sitting the heck down behind the computer again. Hah.

Was reasonably on time getting to bed, so my night was consistent of 6 and a half hours when the alarm went off and I had to get ready to go to market with cousin Ed. I wasn’t stressed, so I could shower, get dressed, eat some breakfast (despite that there was no coffee), gather food for the day, water, and drive the car out and hook up the trailer.
We were only fifteen minutes late leaving and were setting up shop. Took about two hours, as usual to get it all done, but it looked good.
Not a bad day, despite the fact that the place was incredibly busy with partiers. There had been a first communion, so basically the place was rented out for the afternoon (and not with market patrons, mind you). Heck, I even couldn’t sit at my usual table, and the coffee table I found, I was sent away from, to make room for the paying customers. *sigh* I felt almost disappointed.
But no matter, sales were good for the day. We sold a couple of mom’s dog beds, had some nice chats with German folks, Scottish (they came back a last time before going home. Hi, Susan! In case you drop by here), Dutch, and of course Spanish folks. The latter mostly involved other stand holders. Actually chatted with a few of them.
New stand holders were eco-farmers, which was fun. Looked very nice like that, across from all our colorful stuff. Nice folks, too.
Fun moment of the day was definitely a couple of English girls who faltered at our stand, and called a really pouty, “Can’t we buy anything” to which mommy very abruptly answered that no, they couldn’t. So sad, I could see the tears already forming and whispered, “Get to that green basket and pick a small toy. You can have it.” Of course, first came the miniature little pony, which wasn’t really small, so I brought thumb and index finger together and said, “smaller” which had the girl dig in again, and come up with a little puppet that was small enough. I nodded, watched her blush and smile and then dash after her mom, who called back a heartfelt thank you. Then, of course, the little girl’s younger sister realized what had happened, and was throwing a full-blown tantrum, refusing to go to the car. I had to gesture her back four times before she got it, and came hobbling back to dig into the basket for her present. She was all smiles, and her mommy all grateful as she walked along meek as a little lamb. Had to laugh a lot after that. Those basket with toys are so mean, kids are just drawn to it like a magnet. Hah.

Oh, nice thing is, I have permission to try out my patties over there. Not as ready-made but frozen with pieces for those who want to taste first. How exciting, right? Now I can test them out on impartial folks.

Loading up was another two, and around seven in the evening we were home, unloading once more. Big brother had prepared supper, so that was taken care of, which was a relief. Did some edits, unwinded, and went to bed at last.

Didn’t sleep all that bad, but my foot was a problem this morning. I really can’t figure out how that works, but the insoles, the customized ones and the prefabs don’t work. I’ve decided to stop caring, because let’s face it, that’s just exhausting.

Today. Well, there was the usual chores, of course. Edits in the morning and evening, and working out in the old horse paddock to get the beams for the future kitchen out, measure everything and decide for once and for all whether we’re going to put roof windows in…we’re not. There just aren’t enough hours in the days for that, so we’ve opted for a closed rood. Not that it matters, considering three sides of the place will be open during the summer. It should be enough.
That decided on, figuring it all out will be a lot easier.

Had to go to my doctor’s appointment, which had good news. No more puss, so I don’t have to be back. Yay! I felt like celebrating. Then we had to pick up a few groceries. Cousin Ed’s birthday’s tomorrow, and I’m making pastries…got to work on that the moment we got home. I think it worked out, but we’ll have to see tomorrow. That done, it was time to cook supper, for us as well as for tenant, who was happy with her veggie mash, thankfully.

And that will have to do. The remainder of the evening was spent with the usual edit, and now it is already one in the morning. I need sleep.