I had a phone call at the weekend from a friend of ours who had a visitor who was refusing to leave. This visitor was a tiny kitten, looking rather the worse for wear, with a terrible eye infection and a rather distended tummy. I had noticed the kittens before and had been a bit upset to hear the owner of the barn in which they were residing was regularly throwing water over the kitten and its two siblings in an attempt to get them to push off. The purpose of the call was to ask if I would take the little fella/girl on.
The timing couldn’t be worse really with us in the middle of major works and as usual with little money or time to look after yet another animal, especially a sickly one. So the sensible thing was to say on this occasion we would let someone else rescue it. Only of course I can’t be sensible to save my life and no sooner had I put the phone down I was dashing up the road to pick up Judith to go and retrieve the kitten from the jaws of death.
Bearing in mind its rough start in life it was happy to be picked up and fussed from the word go, and purred away as we applied the rapidly purchased wormer and eye drops. We couldnt believe how affectionate it was and put it down to the joy of being rescued from its situation and siblings who were twice its size. A couple of days later though and I wasnt happy with the eye so I decided to take it to the vet. Not the posh English type one (ie expensive) but the local farmers ‘tell it like it is, don’t waste your money’ type vet.
“Did it come from your barn?” The vet asked, “No, someone gave it to me” I replied. “This is not a good present” he said. ”It has a bad heart, it is beating way too fast and he is feeble, I am not sure if he will live… you can try though.” I explained that the kitten seemed quite bright and was always happy and purring. “We have an expression in France, imbecile heureux” said the vet laughing.
Right now I am thinking that it is probably me that is the imbecile heureux.