jet lag and babbling

• By Alison
• 29 December, 2009
• 4 Comments

The cat is sleeping on my arms, which is making typing this post very very difficult indeed. He hasn’t done this since he was a kitten, which just shows how much our holiday has affected him.

I decided that a cattery wasn’t a good solution for Toby while we were away in Sydney over christmas because I didn’t like the idea of him cooped up in a cage, so I paid the vet’s receptionist to come and take care of him every morning for two weeks. I also asked a friend of mine if she’d pop in during the evening and lock him in the house.

This seemed to work fine until the second week, when he decided to start using my sofas as a toilet. That’s always popular.

We arrived home to find the cat sitter in the process of cleaning the sofa covers. Strangely, she decided to put them in the compost caddies. I’d never have thought a base sofa cover would fit in the council provided caddy, but apparently they do. This is the point where I start to appreciate the fact that my mother in law probably licked them clean before she left the house.

Just to explain – the girls and I flew out a week earlier than Mr Boxer Shorts, and he got his mother to clean the house for him before he left. 

He’s an only child. Explains much.

I hugged her. Jet lag does that to you. Hugging strange people who you’ve paid to do stuff for you is never a good idea. (We’re talking about the cat sitter here, not my mother in law. Not that I don’t hug my mother in law of course.) Like the time I told the fishman I loved him. Wow, that was a strange day. Even worse that my husband was in earshot. La la la.

So anyway. I hastened her out the door. Actually, she ran out the door. See, I knew hugging her was a mistake. She did mention that Toby didn’t eat a lot. And that she thought he was suffering from stress. That was before she ran out the door of course.

I went back to the kitchen to start clearing up. Toby’s bowl was full of food. And I mean full. To the brim. I only ever give him a handful of food at a time, but he had enough for about 2 weeks, or 7 cats. Whichever comes first. No wonder she thought he didn’t eat much. Although, with the cat flap on both in and out, there should have been at least 4 of them helping themselves. Which apparently there wasn’t. Maybe her perfume was a bit over powering?

Still, she was right about the eating. He didn’t eat at all the day we got home. I tried him with both dried food and sachets. No joy.

I went upstairs and found two little yellow patches of wee, and one poo on the carpet. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s not eating right now, since what goes in, must come out.

Normally I lock him in the house at about 11pm, but the day we got home I was in bed before nine – so that’s when he was locked in. I told the girls in the morning that they needed to watch where they put their feet, since there might be some horrible little presents left lying about.

Thankfully, there were none. None that we’ve found, anyway.

Toby didn’t eat any breakfast that morning, so I started to worry. I pumped him up with some pro kolin that I had in the cupboard, and he happily licked it off his nose. Well, he probably wasn’t happy about me smearing crap on him in the first place, but he licked it off anyway.

Instead of going out, he stayed in all day, hanging around wondering if we were about to disappear again.

Later that evening, Toby finally began eating a bit. No much, but a little.

And now he’s lying on my arms, which has really slowed down the whole typing process.

The only reason I am typing this is because I need to stay awake a bit longer. Last night I was passed out at about 8pm. Right now it’s 9.30pm, so anything beyond this is a great achievment. And I’ve just finished off the bottle of wine single handedly, since my ever loving hubby passed out just before the girls did.

So there you have it. Jet lag. It causes people to guzzle red wine and blog gibberish about  how much their cats missed them while they were on holiday.