Death By Misadventure - Well Almost!

Dave had a near death experience last night and it was partly my fault. My favourite meal is liver and bacon, but I always pick the bits of onion out of the gravy, the onion needs to be there to flavour the gravy but there is no way that I want to eat that slimy stuff so I pick it out. I usually put the onion bits in a little plastic bag but yesterday there was an empty crisp packet at the top of the bin so I scooped the gravy covered onion into that folded it over a few times and put it in the bin. I thought no more about it and in due course I went To bed. The problem is that a when it comes to food Dave is a chap who just can't say no (a bit like Robbie really!) and old habits are hard to break, he was a stray for a long time and he still has a compulsion to rummage through the bins. It seems Dave went rummaging in the bin, found the crisp packet and in an attempt to get the bits of onion and gravy he got the crisp packet stuck on his head. Robbie came home very late from a rail tour and he found Dave sprawled on the floor in the hall almost unconscious with the crisp packet on his head. At first Robbie thought he was dead but when he removed the crisp packet and stroked him for a little while Dave revived and by the time I went down to feed him in the he was his old self again. I would have been devastated if anything had happened to him, I love that cat so much.

One Foot in The Grave 06.06.07

Here is one more work memory, just to show that it isn't all about bodily functions. Some years ago I was on my way home at the end of a long and challenging day. I drove out of the rear car park and I was just driving past the front of the building when a female resident rushed out and waved frantically asking me to stop. I pulled in to a parking bay and she told me that her friend (another resident) was sobbing because her budgie was laying down and wouldn't move. She asked if I could please go and give it the kiss of life. I have achieved one or two surprising things in my life but resurrecting a budgie was not within my powers. I called in at the office to collect some kitchen roll and a plastic bag and then went up to the flat to view the deceased. I found the budgie's owner sobbing and another female resident wailing in sympathy. The third resident who had fetched me began to join the cacophony providing the descant range. That proved more than flesh and blood could endure and I sent her off to find the male resident who helped out at the allotment, to ask him to dig a hole in the front garden big enough to bury a budgie.

I realised that the owner of the budgie was very upset. A pet can mean so much to someone who lives alone. I checked the budgie, pronounced life extinct and gently lifted it from the cage for her to say her goodbyes. I wrapped the budgie in a shroud of about four sheets of kitchen roll and placed it in the little plastic bag to carry it down to the front garden. When I got to the garden I found that they had chosen a lovely spot in the corner of the garden but the hole was big enough to bury a horse! The male resident was in the hole and still digging with the female resident looking on, the other two were leaning out of the windows still wailing. I removed the budgie from the plastic bag and I passed the it, still wrapped in the kitchen roll to the man, I warned him to hold it carefully. He stood in the hole and took the budgie, he held the 'shroud' in exactly the wrong place, it unrolled and the corpse dropped into the hole. The howling from above reached a crescendo and was enhanced by the sobs of the two residents in the garden. I should have been at home cooking the evening meal, but instead I found myself in a muddy grave recovering the corpse of a budgie in order to re wrap and bury the poor thing.

The resident showed her appreciation for the support I had given her by naming her new budgie Nissan after my car!