Drugs and Bedpans

I had to go to the vet today. I've been sneezing like a human with his head in a snuff pot recently. I think it must be the cold weather here in good old Blighty. Either that or the cocaine. Anyway my male staff dragged me to the surgery where once again I had a horse thermometer (see my previous post http://pemery.blogspot.com/2010/12/horse-thermometer.html ) shoved up my bottom passage and a dirty great needle stabbed into me. The former made by eyes water and the latter made me squeal like a girl and wet myself. All very undignified. Anyway the upshot of it all is that the vet thinks I'm just being a wimp, and to punish me has given me some bloody awful tasting antibiotics. Bastard!

Anyway I'm feeling better now and my staff has been painting my favourite vegetables with the antibiotic liquid. He thinks I don't notice, but I'm not as stupid as he is. So it's either antibiotic flavoured capsicum or go without, and I've never been one to go without.

We're going to the horsepiddle again today to visit my male staff's mum. Apart from the fact that I'll be shoved down the front of my male staff's trouser again in order to smuggle me in I'm rather looking forward to the outing. Once we're settled next to his mum's bed my male staff usually undoes his fly to allow me to poke my head out and eat some of his mum's grapes. It's a shame Badger couldn't come too as he just loves grapes, but someone had to stay back in Australia to keep my female staff under control. There would certainly be plenty of room down the front of my staff's trousers for both Badger and I. It's not as if there is much else down there, as I have found from my own bitter experience.

I have to admit that while I enjoy visiting horsepiddle, I find the whole ritual more than just a little strange. Every day my male staff, his dad, his auntie and yours truly pile into the car and drive to the hospital. After the first couple of days everyone ran out of things to say. My staff's mum's day revolves around drugs and bed pans and as for the rest of us, well, our days revolve around preparing to visit the horsepiddle. How much can anybody say about that sort of existence. So we all sit in a rough semi-circle around my staff's mum. My staff's dad hobbles around using a dickensian contraption called a walking frame, is stone deaf and habitually says "Eh?" to everything that is said, even if it's not said to him. My staff's aunt recently tripped over a garden hose and face-planted into a pile of gravel. Consequently the poor old thing's face looks like it's been attacked by a particularly stroppy cat. Then of course there's my male staff who sits there with a large, hairy creature poking out of his open fly. They all sit there gazing at his mum, trying to think of things to say that weren't said the day before - and the day before that. The only moderately normal person amongst them is my staff's mum. The rest of them look more like they should be in horsepiddle than she does.