Charlie - Exploration and Accident

Charlie in recovery, 'helping' with the planning of some restorative yoga

Life has moved on in unexpected ways since the last post - mostly for Charlie the cat. He turned up one morning hobbling horribly and, desperate to get him to the village vets before yoga class, I cycled there to leave a note. It seemed like a village approach which I would never have tried in the Big Town. The receptionist phoned back immediately she came in, and we got an appointment first thing. My students rallied round when I messaged them, coming early to help set up the class and bringing comfort and, in two cases, expert reassurance - they have worked for years in a local vets. We had the class outside, in the glorious mini-summer of late February 2019, one for the record books.

My first yoga practice by 'Catchwater Drain', the part of the fen drainage system at the bottom of our garden

Charlie was undiagnosable in those first days as he was so jumpy and everything around his distressed left back leg so inflamed. He was given massive doses of antibiotic, anti inflammatory and analgesic. His pupils dilated to almost the full size of his eyes, he stared dolefully at us and missed several yoga classes.

We'd been telling everyone how much he loved his village life, attending all the yoga classes where he was lionised by the loving locals and spending much more time exploring outside than he had before the move. We've recently heard from a neighbour that some of this time outside involved invading her house in pursuit of her two tiny black cats - finding himself inside at 2am he couldn't get back out and all three cats protested loudly at the situation. We were shocked. We believe Charlie to be some kind of human / cat with a pure and loving and unanimal-like heart. Apparently lots of pet owners have the same delusion.

His injury was a jolt, and that feeling of not knowing what exactly was hurting took me back to my children's baby discomforts. 'Just tell me what's wrong!' You long for them to be able to talk, but of course even then, even with adults, even with the breadth of investigation and treatment that we swim in now, we don't always know what's wrong, and it's not always fixable in the way we long for it to be.

We have now been told that Charlie's left knee cap is the problem, that he's probably ruptured or torn a ligament or two. We were offered an operation for him, but I ruptured a cruciate ligament in 1979. (Auto correct wants me to tell you it was a crucial ligament, and it's not wrong). I had a very big surgical intervention, and although the recommended approach for the time, stabilising the joint, the after effects have been very long lasting and not all positive. Yoga has really helped with the drawing, arthritic pain that developed in the joint. Consultation with everyone who knows about knees and pets (our vet students have been great, as has the village vet) has led us to decide on conservative treatment for our limping cat, so we're encouraging him to rest and giving him anti inflammatories.

Ninja the Silkie chicken. She's just coming out of a broody stage 

The escaping Poland chicken gets into the next door garden most days, and is then very keen to get back in. We've come to an arrangement, and she'll let me lift a bit of fence for her to scramble through, even though she's still so nervous of me. One night she'd already gone to roost in a tree near the fence, and Jeremy managed to lift her over, as she was in her night-time trance. So cute.

AND A LITTLE YOGA -

This week in the classes we looked at these great Back strength exercises

Charlie and the Chickens - Exploring

'Silver Birches' by Jon Lander

Walking down to feed the chickens I was surprised to see one of the Polands strutting in the Wood Section of the garden. This is the best photo I have of one of the Polands:

I'll try to do better. The Wood Section is small, for a wood, but very big for any wood we've ever owned. (We've never owned a wood.) It has silver birches in it, so the house is called Silver Birches:

The Poland disappeared, and by the time I'd opened the gate to the Chicken Section of the garden the Poland was strolling around in the middle of the others as if butter wouldn't melt. Can you spot her amongst the crowd? The Polands are the maddest looking, with spiky black and brown feathers and crazy wavy headresses. 

I found the place the Poland had wriggled through, in the corner between the neighbouring plant nursery, the Chicken Section and the Wood Section. And (I think) I fixed it. There was the perfect piece of chicken wire lying around (maybe it wasn't chicken wire, not really sure of the definition of chicken wire). A couple of days later we were coming back from a weekend away, having left the chickens and Charlie in the very good hands of a very good friend. Straight away we walked down the garden to visit them, and they were all in the wood. I exclaimed 'Chickens!' in case Jeremy hadn't spotted them. But he had. There are 11 of them, and they are noticeable. And noisy, in a good way. It turned out they hadn't escaped through the hole but through the gate, which was open. They love the Wood Section, it seems, but were very happy to follow us into the Chicken Section. 

Today's last photo is of Charlie on his first day in Silver Birches. We kept him inside for a month, but he's made up for it since. We'll come to his explorations next.