In a World gone Mad: 1 July 2020 ... 2

She has a rash and is scratching all the time. She’s going through a furious moult, I’ve never seen a dog loose so much hair. I’ve been asking to get her to a vet for a month. Max said we’d book her in  on Friday. Friday came and went. Then we had to wait until the end of the month when he got paid his furlough. When he got it, he was two hundred pounds down and couldn’t afford it. We have spent a fortune on home remedies. First stop was flea stuff. That was thirty five pounds even though we have never once seen a flea or any flea dirt on her. It wasn’t that. Then, after a google search he decided that she was allergic to the flea treatment so after using it once a month for six months, we’ve abandoned that. We’ve tried her on five different shampoos from dog stuff to tea tree oil shampoo for humans. She’s on 10mg of Loratadine a day. Yesterday, instead of just booking a bloody appointment with the vet, he’s spent eleven pounds on an antiseptic spray.  Please, please, let’s get the poor dog to the vet and get a professional opinion.  It could be washing powder, I’ve been washing her bedding twice a week.  Yesterday, I washed it on a hot wash but just in water with no power after running the machine empty to rinse it. It hasn’t made a difference.  It could be her food. We’ve changed it, and she’s still scratching.  It might be grass and pollen, she’s not allowed  in long grass and we take her to a small patch at the top of the road where she does her business and she’s only allowed on the edge of it. It hasn’t made a difference. It could be mange, she needs to see a vet. 

To be fair, it’s not bad, she has no sores or hair loss and it might just be the severity of her moult. This is her first real moult since being a puppy and she’s lost all her undercoat fluff.   We are short of money and I probably am overreacting.

I anthropomorphise far too much. I get in my headspace and worry about my animals happiness and wellbeing, it begins with a niggle and an hour later I’m obsessing about it and can’t think about anything else. Bang on six o’clock, I get it in my head that the dog hasn’t been walked for nine hours and I get agitated until she’s taken out. Max is probably right, a couple of weeks of lead walking might do her good. And the scratching is normal for a dog at this time of year, she hasn’t got fleas, she hasn’t got any bald patches and she hasn’t got any sores—she just scratches a lot. Apparently, according to the gospel of St Mark, it’s what dogs do.

Arthur is a pin in the arse.  We have had storms this week. I will probably remember this with fondness when he’s thankfully dead. I looked for my jacket to walk the dog, it’s is purple faux leather with a bright purple fluffy collar. Anything in the house goes missing and the first thing we do is check Arthur but, it is a ladies jacket, it wouldn’t occur to me for a second that he’d have it. I spent twenty minutes searching the house for it. I knew I’d hung it in the  hall because I’m a creature of habit and it’s what I always do. The dog saw me put my shoes on and was going demented to go out. I looked in every room except Arthur’s and I won’t go in there on principle because he accuses me of stealing his wallet or his watch almost every day. The last place to search was the gardens. I thought Arthur was in his room—but no, he was sitting out enjoying the pouring rain and gale force wind—in my jacket.

Last week we brought yet more junk from his house. We’re on the second skip now after filling one and only his personal memories and things that ground him to his life are coming here.

My house is full of him.

He shuffled into my office while I was working.  He deposited a straw boat from China on the left hand side of my desk. He put a white porcelain lady on the right side of my desk, and I got a brass carthorse plonked right in the middle of my keyboard. He was so proud and beamed at me as though he’d just given me the crown jewels.

‘We’ve just been shopping, and I bought these beautiful things especially for you, Joan.’

He stood back waiting for praise and gratitude. I couldn’t be annoyed with him.  

‘Oh, Arthur, they’re beautiful. Thank you so much. But wouldn’t you rather have them on your shelves in your room?’

‘No, young lady, these were very expensive, and I bought them for you.’

‘Well thank you Arthur, they are lovely.’

Max waited for him to forget about them and shoved them with the other three million pieces of old tat at the back of one of his shelves. The carthorse is in animated conversation between Peter Rabbit and the Sphinx—though don’t ask me which language they are using.

Belle has another new disease. She has to have an ‘operation’ apparently, and it could be life threatening. There’s a good chance she’ll die during the procedure because it’s so dangerous. She has blocked milk glands in her breasts that have to be removed. What the hell? She hasn’t had milk for four years, it seems unlikely they’d spontaneously block now. I’m not sure if it’s the glands or the blockage that is being removed—but don’t worry, she will still have her breasts. She assured her dad it’s not a full mastectomy—just a partial one.

Joan was very upset last night. Despite Ivor dying of cancer and her being told not to have people in the house. She had her sister and two of her sister’s middle aged children staying in her home for three nights either side of Pam’s funeral. They went home—but apparently the sneaky buggers returned yesterday with removal vans and gutted Pam’s house. They have emptied it to the bare walls and floorboards.

There was a bitter argument on the phone and Joan’s niece said to her, ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath about getting anything in the will, we have it on good authority that she’s left everything to my mum.’

What a horrible thing to do. I felt very sorry for Joan for about two minutes. It is awful and it was a sneaky and underhand thing to do that should probably have been done by agreement, and with all of them present.

However, it was a race, if they hadn’t got in there first, Joan was planning on taking Archie and doing exactly the same thing. I have never met a family that is more money orientated than this lot. It almost makes me glad that I’ve got nothing to leave my boys.