fret, fret, fret

The great clean up continues. It left us with an hour and a half last night to nip down to the local for a celebratory drinkie-poos to mark Benny’s last day. As I said before, I’m not going to keep going on about it, but it really does take up an awful lot of time - so if I miss a post in the evening now and again, I hope you’ll understand.

It’s a grey and windy day in Sligo. The flags on the forecourt look like their struggling to get away from their poles. It’s the kind of grey sky I like though, rolls of dark, almost pastel-navy cloud, every shade of grey through smokey and nearly white, along with great slashes of billowy-white, glowing a hint of brightness to come. It’s brisk is what it is. And it’s not wet, and that’s always good.

I’ve been making progress on the Sales front. I forgot to mention it because I still don’t feel, until I’ve gone the whole way through the process on my own, that I’ve made my first sale. I’ve assisted on a few that have gone through, and I’ve had three deals fall through my fingers because the customers didn’t like the part exchange price offered to them (by the sales manager). It’s funny how people get personally insulted by the price offered for their car.

An update on the driving licence debacle - they’ve decided that people on their second provisional have until June to get their licence sorted, so these people can continue driving alone. The rules apparently still apply to first provisional drivers, like myself. But the thing is, we were always not supposed to be driving alone and the guards turned a blind eye. My gut feeling is, seeing as the second provisional holders are being let off the hook, the guards (police) aren’t going to be mad to stop people with L plates just yet. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway so, I’ll just have to keep mentally cloaking the ship and hoping for the best. I figure taking down the L plates is a bad idea at this stage - they’re more likely to think I’m on my 2nd with them up. I’ll just avoid driving as much as I can otherwise.

My parents are coming down tonight. I’m not mad about the idea really, as much as I want to see them. They don’t really feel like they can postpone the trip though - they have the dog in kennels since their holiday last week so they’re using the last week of her being there to get down to see us.

It’s rare me and my parents come to a major disagreement these days, but I really genuinely hope they listen to my instructions regarding the ring worm or their will be unfortunate consequences in the form of me telling them to leave. I really don’t want it to go like that - but I simply cannot risk the cats not clearing up within the next five weeks. If they’re still infected at the end of that period they will have to go back on the medication for another five weeks - which would mean no holiday for us. We can’t ask anyone to mind them, and no cattery will take cats with ringworm.

The thought of having to cook and clean around my parents (though they’re bringing their own bedclothes), as well as educate them on washing their hands constantly, not touching the cats, not allowing the cats to rub up against them, closing their bedroom door, the bathroom door, the kitchen door, not closing doors on inquisitive little paws, spraying tea tree oil on hands, changing clothes each day…….. I do not relish having to make sure all of these things are done.

Between you and me I think they’re stupid to risk giving it to themselves and to their dog. But anyhow.

So wish me luck. I said I wouldn’t whinge, but I did. Blehhh.

I’ll be posting soon…

Ran out of time last night, will explain all later. Some work bits and bobs to do first

Kim and Aggie eat your heart out

Kim and Aggie, for those of you now totally lost, are the stars of a British TV show that cleans up really, really dirty houses using a mixture of lemon juice and science to teach and frighten the shite out of dirty people all over the UK.

I doubt the house has ever been this clean. It’s uncomfortably clean. And we’re not done, no where near done. Everything is nearly done, nothing finished. We’re cleaning everything, literally everything. Every time I sit down I see something I’ve forgotten to clean, or could have wiped over with some Milton, and I feel dirty and pissed off at having to add something else to a list I feel like I’ll never complete anyway.

I’m not going to keep whinging about it. I’ll just say one more negative thing - it’s like having an invader in your house making you upset your routine and do everything differently, and stealing all your time, and knowing you have to live with that invader for five weeks. The fact that that invader is limiting the amount of contact I can have with my kitties is probably the worst part though.

I am thankful that Sasha isn’t distressed, that would have broken my heart altogether. Also that Millie still isn’t showing any signs of getting it (he’s had it well over a week so I hope she’ll continue to be immune). I am also thankful that it happened just before Benny finishing up work - if we had to try and tackle moping the house every day and putting on washes every day (and the other nine-fricken-million chores) while we were both working I think we would have both just had a meltdown. Similarly I’m thankful it all happened when the weather outside justifies having the radiators on to dry out everything we’ve had to wash. I don’t like drying things on radiators but I don’t have a dryer and there is far too much to put on clothes horses etc. anyway, the heat is good for killing the spores. That reminds me, Sasha’s two new nicknames (the ones I can share at least) are ‘mushroom’ and, our favourite, ‘Sporta’ (as in Sparta, but with a fungusy flavour), (remember, ringworm is a fungus, that’s the clue to the nicknames )

Another positive thing that’s happened, and that we’re really thankful for, is our surprise purchase in Argos yesterday. We went to Longford (it’s about an hour and fifteen minutes drive) on Sunday to get a bagless hepa filter vacuum (not having a bag means you can clean the inards after use to kill the spores that perpetuate the ringworm) and a little heater for me for getting dressed in the mornings (rather than turning on the heating just for me). While on the page for the heaters we spotted ‘air purifiers’ on the next page, these things apparently clean bacteria, spores etc. out of the air. The only one that appealed (the one with a permanent hepa filter, because who ever gets around to buying replacement filters for these things?) was too dear, so we flicked on to the next page to find the answer to our prayers.

Put simply, there are some things that the cats have come into contact with that you just can’t wash, their toys for instance. The little gadget we picked up is designed to clean just such things - it’s a UV light cleaner and it’s fun. Well, if it worked a little faster it’d be really fun, but it’s very helpful in the fight against fungus. I don’t think it mentions on the page I’ve linked to their that it kills spores, but it does. You can also clean your toothbrush and your shoes with it, and the keyboard, and pretty much anything, so it’s pretty cool.

My other friend in the fight is tea tree oil (not on the pusses, their little puss livers can’t process it properly, unfortunately). I diluted some with water in an atomiser for spraying on handles and handies and basically anything around the house I’m worried will spread the infection. It’s drying our hands out a bit though so I’m considering mixing some small batches of Aqueous BP with tea tree oil mixed in. I’m pretty inventive in a pickle.

Anywho, that’s me. I’m wrecked. Although I will leave you with a giggle I just had. I just walked out of the kitchen, feeling rather thankful that I had found the exact thing I had a craving to drink hiding in the back on the fridge, to find Millie sitting in a tiny prim little pose in the middle of the darkened hallway. For some reason I decided to serenade her in a mock baritone voice, I think the lyrics went something along the lines of ‘Ohhhhhh Milllllie, you are such a tiny puss..’, it was really just one sentence, and I think it rhymed, but it was very loud and I kind of half expected her to run. Instead she just looked at me, in that way that I absolutely LOVE, and said, clear as day right through those beautiful wide eyes, ‘oh my God you are such a fucking freak’. I love my cats, and anyone that says they don’t have a sense of humour just isn’t getting the point

Nighty nite all, x

brief word

I just wanted to say thank you for your kind words of support, and apologise that I wont be able to post until later. I fell asleep last night on the couch after a long day of driving and cleaning and couldn’t summon up the energy to post after. I’ll be back later on, though I can’t guarantee I’ll have much to say after another day of scrubbing. Take care all, x

oh fffffbother

I heard three things in short succession today that I really didn’t want to hear. The first was, ‘Your cat has ringworm’, the second was, ‘it’s highly contagious’, and the third was, ‘that’ll be 102 euros please’.

Needless to say we’re not going to Cavan anymore. Quite apart from the unexpected outlay, I wouldn’t want to risk leaving the ’spores’ around for my parents dog to acquire.

The worst part of it all is the idea that I have to ‘limit contact’ with my babies. For five weeks! I just don’t think I’m going to be able to do that - how can you ignore a kitten that wants a cuddle and a pet from their mammy? You can’t. So I’m going to take a bath with tea tree oil every night and let my ocd run wild with the hand washing. I’ve been told I should wear gloves too - I may fish out a pair of woolies for evening petting sessions. I can wash them in the sink and pop them on a rad to dry out over night I suppose.

So the next fun irritant is having to wash all of the six throws that protect the couches. I’m on throws two and three at the moment, throw one is boiling away on a very hot radiator (apparently heat kills the fungus - it’s not a worm as it turns out). I just don’t know what to do with the throws after that - I mean, I was told my clothes that come into contact with them would have to be washed pretty much daily - but I can’t wash those throws daily, or anywhere near it. But then - I can’t leave the couches uncovered or they’ll get the spores on them, and I can’t wash the couches. I suppose a little under a week will have to do for washing them - does anyone have any advice on this one?

I have the mop soaking in bleach in the sink at the moment, then I’m gonna rinse it very carefully and scrub out the bucket and do a mop down with diluted Milton. I think I’ll repeat that process quite a bit. Thankfully we have a lot of wooden floors in this house. Then I have to hoover. Then I have to wash down all the surfaces in the sitting room etc. with a weak bleach solution. It’s my poxy weekend off!

Of course I’ve been itching ever since I got the news, you know that stupid itching you do when you think about being itchy and then get itchy all over. I don’t have any ringworm spots or anything, fingers crossed it stays that way. It takes 10 - 14 days to incubate, so I figure I really should have gotten it by now if I was going to get it. Maybe it’s because it’s only Sasha that has it, and he’s not quite as lap magnetised in the evenings as Millie.

I also need to administer drops to both of them, she doesn’t have any mites but the vet said twas best to do both for both things seeing as their in close proximity.

I feel put upon, I gotta tell ya. I know I should probably feel sorry for the mogs but they’re as happy as happy can be, nay a bother on them. He doesn’t appear to be in any distress, no itching, no depression or listlessness, nothing. Fighting fit and full of beans the both of them, thankfully. I’ve been reminding myself since I got this horrible news, that it could have been more horrible and I should thank my stars it’s something treatable I’m dealing with.

I can’t figure out how they got them, I really can’t. They’re indoor pusses. Unless someone that came into the house had contact with something, which I suppose is possible. We took them outside the door for a little sniff about with their harnesses on a few weeks back, but they’d had their advantage or whatever it’s called at that point so we thought we were safe. And we’re literally only talking ten minutes of being outside and not getting near any soil or any other animals. It’s bizarre, it really is. I suppose they might have been carrying it and it got triggered in Sasha after the stress of getting his shots. I suppose I should be thankful it’s only him with a lesion and not her as well. She had nothing on her at all that he could see.

So now, that’s my news for the day. Pretty shitty I think you’ll agree. If anyone has any advice or tips please pass them on - even if you want to be anonymous or whatever

vino collapso…

Katie’s up, big chats, lots of wine, sleep in tomorrow no doubt

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to post tomorrow but I have to bring his lordship to the vets and then we’re Cavan bound so entries may be sparse over the weekend.

Take care all, x

the horror

I became so upset by the news this evening that I cried. We have been told, the 420,000 odd provisional licence holders of Ireland, that we can no longer drive without the accompaniment of a full licence holder who has held their licence for two years. Now, I shouldn’t have been driving on my own, on a first provisional, anyway. I knew this, but I also knew that the Gardaí (police) have always been lenient in respect to this because of the long waiting times for tests and because of the absolutely shitty public transport in this country (I haven’t heard of one person being fined or otherwise for being stopped driving alone on a first provisional, ever). All second provisional holders were entitled to drive alone.

Now, no provisional licence holder is allowed to drive alone, and they give us five days notice. So basically, for me, living down here without access to anyone with a two year old full licence (other than an instructor who charges 30e an hour), I’m being told that I basically can’t drive anymore. I have NO other way to get to work. There is no public transport, and taxi fares would cost half my present salary (no kidding). If I get caught I will receive 2 penalty points and a fine up to one thousand euros. If I take my L plates down to avoid being pulled over (which I most certainly will be if I’m the only person in the car with L plates up), I’ll get another 2 points and another fine up to one thousand euros (adding up to 4 points, which will kill me on insurance, and up to 2000 euros of a fine). This also means that now, the only way I can practice for my driving test is by paying an instructor. My instructor has already told me I drive like someone who’s been driving for a year or two. So I’ll only drive, say, three more times before my test by that logic. I will be seriously rusty.

I understand why they’re doing it. It will make the roads safer in the short term, and in the long term drivers coming out of this system will probably be better trained. What I am sickened to my guts by is the fact that they’ve given us 5 days notice. Five fucking days to rearrange your life.

Following what has happened here logically, if I choose not to break the law I can no longer get to work. If I leave my job because of this I won’t be able to draw the dole for 9 weeks because I left voluntarily. This is beyond ridiculous, and this is actually going to happen to some people. Losing your job, your transport and having no right to claim government financial support, with five days notice. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess how that’s going to work out for some people.

Now, here’s the next fun part. Our government revealed today that they will almost certainly all be getting double figured raises. So, our prime minister, I’m not even going to dignify that cunt with the proper Irish name, he’s no Irish man, he’s a fucking lowlife piece of scum, is now going to be getting 338,000 euros a year. That’s $484,119.32 US dollars and £236,009.72 UK pounds. He will now be earning more than Bush and Gordon Brown. He is a heartless, money grabbing, leaching, soulless, stupid, hateful despot. He does not give a flying fuck about anyone other than his rich friends on the top rung and lining all of their pockets. There are people starving and dying and scraping a living in this country and that disgusting creature is earning 338,ooo euros a year.

The oncology department in Sligo is planned to be closed down, forcing people to travel across the country for cancer care.

America and Iran.

Not even petting the cats is going to stop the knife pain in my heart tonight. I’ve written most of this in tears, I just can’t understand this heartless stupidity. I could never have words to describe how upset I am tonight. I could go out to the river and scream my lungs out, that would only come close. I feel like a dragon in a matchbox.

**********

As an afterthought, and perhaps a clarification of where some of this anger is coming from, think about the stupidity of a government that wrecks 420,000 peoples weekends, and possible a whole lot more, and announces on the same day that they’re giving themselves between 20,000 and 40,000 euro raises. 20 - 40,000 euros is pretty much what the vast majority of working class Irish people earn in a year - and they’re giving themselves a raise equivalent to what normal people earn in a year on top of the 200,000 to 300,000 that they’re already on.

oh to be a mountain, frolicking in the sea

I have the music from my Sky tv menu screen playing in my head. That’s slightly unsettling. Let’s see if I can’t beat it out with some ’smoke on the water’…dun dun dun, dun dun denun,..

Yup, that’ll do.

Our celebrations were a little limp last night to be honest. We pottled down to the local for two, we just weren’t hungry for the pints last night - too full after a celebratory corned-beef hash. It was fine though, he was tired from all his exertions and I’m still adjusting to my new work schedule so we were content to take it easy and polish the night off with a nice tea and a cuddle for the moglets before bed. How old do we sound?

I just secured my Saturday off, wowho! Benny isn’t off til six, but by god, I just needed a Saturday morning for shuffling about listening to the radio etc. and putting on some washes. I have the following one off as well, but I suspect that’s going to get complicated, even though I booked it last week. A lot of the others are looking for it off to attend weddings and such. I’ll try and swing it so I’m off before 4 one way or the other. We’ll see.

I’m feeling happy enough with myself at the moment. I think knowing I’m going to St. Petersberg is really bouying me along. As a Monday to Friday job I quite like this, it’s very easy going compared to the non-stop pressure of my previous jobs. But then, I’m not having to fight for my commission yet, I’m still in the cushion period where I wont starve if I don’t sell enough. But then, by the time I’m out of that there’ll be plenty of movement (new year) and I’ll probably be a lot more competent and confident.

I felt yesterday, for the first time, like not so much of a newbie. That was nice to realise. I’m feeling more comfortable with everyone as well. I can be a little reserved when meeting new people, and I feel like I’m thawing out of that now. I’m not shy particularly, but I like to bite my lip until I know who I’m dealing with. I wouldn’t want to unnecessarily offend someone who didn’t share my dirty sense of humour for instance - I mean, I don’t think it’s offensive, but then you never know how someone you don’t know might react, if you know what I mean. Bleh. I’m tripping over my words this morning. The internal editor and the imagined readership are shouting louder than me.

*******

It’s a very crisp, very beautiful morning. The sun is razor sharp and pouring a mixture of yellow and white light through windows and across bonnets. I say yellow, because it really is that soft, slightly buttery yellow colour that very bright sunlight can have on a frosty morning - put it this way, the white flags outside look just ever so creamy and white-yellow tinged. The men are walking rapidly between the showrooms, out to a car, across to a customer. They’re perfect hair cuts and suits cutting a path through the shadows, confidence is those tight, fast steps, the back held straight, the hand in a slight fist shape. The utter sense of direction in their short, purposeful stride.

Knocknarea is missing. We swear sometimes it goes for a wander out into the Atlantic, hitching up it’s skirts and off for a quick paddle while the clouds hide it’s dignity. It’s conveniently left a nice heathery/mauvey fluffy cloud in it’s place, to give some illusion that it’s still there, but I know it’s not. Imagine getting to ride on the back of a walking mountain?

To the right the tree’s that mark the ends of the fields are giving it the full Autumn thing. There are so many shades of gold and brown infused green - raw sienna, burnt umber, all the names of the crayons that got ignored - I preferred red back then. But there are reds there too, some of them bordering on wine in this light, and fabulous, soft, smudged-in yellows, some like pinpoints of light, others in the background, with red trim and bare branches at the tips. In the darker green trees in the fields, there are deep deep emeralds, and browns that look heather purple, you know that colour chocolate milk can have from a certain angle - a kind of purplish tint? Like that basically.

To the right of those tree’s my vision is blocked by a large red car (in my showroom, right in front of me) and my monitor. So that’s pretty much all I can see, except for a little triangle to the left of me, from where I can see the spot where Knocknarea is supposed to be.

great news!

BENNY PASSED HIS DRIVING TEST! wooooooooowho!! First time too!

soup, scabs and google searches

Well now. The cats are toasting themselves by the fire, and we’re sprawled on the couch watching some mindless telly. Nice. And the chicken soup I made for dinner this evening was ridiculously nice too. I boiled a free range chicken with carrots and onion on Sunday and made the soup on the stock I got from it. Diced carrot, diced potato, a handful of diced mushroom, along with a dash of dried basil and oregano, a good lash of black pepper, some salt and a handful of the breast meat from Sunday’s chicken = happy, happy tummy’s. Simple, but heartwarming and very, very tasty.

Another quiet day at work, I’m working on getting this Saturday off, though I have the following Saturday so I can’t be sure if I’ll get it. Even though I haven’t exactly been flat out in work, I still feel tired and would really, really love a sleep in on Saturday and a chance to catch up on the household to do list.

Here’s a question for my cat expert readers - Sasha and Millie had ear mites when I brought them to the vet’s last. She cleaned out there ears, put in some medicated cream and a couple of days later I used that drop thing that you put on the back of their necks that kills worms, mites, and other assorted nasties. I can’t think of the name of it unfortunately. Now, there hasn’t been any scratching, but their ears look somewhat dirty again? Kai and Pad never had dirty ears - is dirt but no scratching still likely to mean mites? Another worrisome thing is a mark on Sasha’s face beside his right eye, basically the skin looks a little dark and feels like a scab, but doesn’t look bloody or crusty, and the fur is either flattened down or just growing back. Hang on and I’ll take a picture…

I took a few so you could get an idea

Isn’t he a gorgeous boy though? Anyway, any suggestions you can make about what you think is going on here would be greatly welcomed.

I don’t suppose any of you want to come over here and live in our house for Christmas to mind the kitties? I feel yucky at the thought of leaving them in the cattery, but what can you do? Pet sitters aren’t really as common over here as they seem to be in America - there’s a business idea for me actually.

Benny has his driving test for his full licence tomorrow, so keep things crossed for him. He’s a really good driver, so if he doesn’t get it, it’ll be down to either nerves or a really nasty tester. I found out today mine is in December, but we’ve sent off a letter from work requesting a cancellation should one come up - keep your fingers crossed no cancellations come up please, the longer I have to perfect my new found skill the better!

Until tomorrow, take care all, x (you might notice I’ve stopped putting three x’s/kissies after my ‘take care all’ - I noticed a worrying increase in incoming links from searches using three x’s, e.g. big girls xxx - eek!)