Is dread too strong a word?

 

Is dread too strong a word?

We joke that Bank holidays are the times that Jellicoe likes to test us. He usually waits until the evening, but it was mid-morning today when he jangled our nerves. It was time for elevenses, and while Herschel and the dogs were alert and keen, Jellicoe was nowhere to be seen.

He had been sitting on the bridge over the pond, earlier. It’s his favourite place in the garden, where he can keep an eye ‘over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,’ as Genesis tells us. Flying things, too, are another interest of his, though he doesn’t usually bother with butterflies and dragonflies.

I called, ‘Cats, cats, cats,’ which usually brings him running, but that failed. I then tried shaking the treats tin, full of tasty dried liver (!), which normally causes him to race towards me. Nothing!

Barry went out to look for him and found him lying on the ground, miaouing to be picked up. He brought him indoors and set him down, but he was lethargic and rather uncoordinated, staggering a little. We decided it was time to try the honey remedy. A fingerful of orange blossom honey was rubbed around his gums and mouth, and within a couple of minutes he had revived sufficiently to eat his food, although he didn’t finish it. However, he wanted to investigate Herschel’s bowl, as usual! It's a variation of the grass always being greener on the other side.

We put him and the remains of his food in the conservatory and shut him in there for peace. We applied some more honey, and he ate a little more of his food. I conducted a fifteen-second breath count, and it was within limits, so we left him. When I went to check on him twenty minutes later, it was hot in the conservatory and he was breathing rapidly, so I opened the door and sat with him for a while.

After the air had cooled, Jellicoe’s breathing was at the higher end of the normal range, but slower. The mid-afternoon feed will tell us more, perhaps, but I have a feeling our bank holiday weekend is going to follow a familiar pattern with Jellicoe visiting his friends at the vet.

We are beginning to dread bank holidays!

Later: the three o’clock feed went well. Jellicoe came bouncing into the sitting room when the Alexa alarm sounded. He seemed to want to eat in the conservatory, so I gave him Herschel’s food and Herschel had Jellicoe’s.

There is just one more meal for the cats today, at 7:00 pm, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed until that one has been completed, hopefully successfully. 

May

 

May

It’s May, the sun is shining, and the machines are out in force. At the moment, a tree is receiving attention. I can’t see any men wearing hard hats hanging around in the treetops, so I don’t think any trees will be cut down today. The tree may just be having a trim, an errant limb or two being removed.

There is a background hum of lawnmowers, too. The sun encourages the grass to grow, which in turn incites proud homeowners to sharpen the blades of their mowers and lay waste to the fresh green growth. Woe betide any small invertebrates lurking among the grass stems. What has survived the lawnmower will fall victim to the strimmer.

It's the early spring Bank Holiday weekend, so Monday, which is the actual holiday, will be given over to lawn mowing and barbecues, especially if the sun continues to shine. The scent of newly cut grass wreaks havoc with those who suffer from hay fever, but is soon overwhelmed by the aroma of chargilled meat, with the emphasis being on ‘char.’

Forget about sitting quietly in the garden, enjoying the early spring warmth, pretty flowers, and the songs of birds trilling in the trees.

Mowers to right of us,

 Mowers to left of us,

Stutter and roar,

Worse than before,

Welcome the month of May.

Enjoy the bank holiday, if there is one where you live, and beware the predicted change in weather, and a return to *wintrier days. 

*Adjust according to wherever you live. 

 

 

 

. . . and so the year rolls on . . .

. . . and so the year rolls on . . .

The UK is about to celebrate the Early May Bank Holiday on Monday 1st May. This means that families may get together for a barbecue, likely to take place under lowering skies and/or driving rain. Others may choose to take a long weekend break, clogging the motorways in a bid to escape the humdrum of daily life. Those who choose to stay at home often decide to use the extra leisure time to catch up on (or start) some gardening, decorating or d-i-y projects. This results in logjams of cars streaming to garden centres and d-i-y stores and then attempting to find parking spaces. 

Customers impatient to begin their appointed tasks shoulder their way through crowds of other like-minded souls, locate their items and then queue to pay for them. By the time they reach home again, some two or three hours later, the will to achieve anything is dissipating. Of course, there are some organized folks who have already laid in their supplies but these are the people who work steadily at keeping everything in their houses and gardens tickety-boo, surely the most sensible way to proceed in life.

UK citizens enjoy – or endure – just eight Bank Holidays a year and for only two of them, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, are the large shops shut (though not in Scotland on Easter Sunday) Small shops are free to open as they please on these days. Nonetheless, particularly if visitors are to be hosted, a siege mentality takes hold and huge amounts of provisions are amassed, with every conceivable potential taste being accommodated. It’s no good reminding anyone that the shops will be open again in twenty-four hours’ time.

The next surge in bulk buying, that is, the next Bank Holiday, will be at the end of May. Perhaps Summer will have arrived by then. If not, surely the August Bank Holiday will come up trumps – and speaking of Trump, who knows what he may have set in motion by then.

Anyway, whatever you are planning, even if it’s nothing, enjoy your weekend J

SkyWatch Friday Season 4 Episode 42 April sky through blossom

Beautiful weather this week now rapidly changing as a Bank Holiday looms . . . if you bet on it you wouldn't win any money!
As ever, thank you to the SkyWatch Team. Please click here to see more lovely skies across the globe.

Friday 55 Flash Fiction

Dull roaring invaded her dreams. Her handsome swain became a bully. She jerked awake, listening in the dark as the clanking approached. She didn't believe in ghosts.

Then she remembered, swore, leapt from her bed. She had intended putting the rubbish out earlier.

Too late! Bank Holiday refuse collectors had gone.

Thank you to g-man-Mr Knowitall for creating and hosting this meme.
To read more contributions please click here