29th November 2007

Well, yesterday came and went without much fuss… I was finished on time but the Removal men turned up a little later than expected, so I was able to have a little bit of peace and quiet and put my feet up before they arrived. I am genuinely impressed with them so far. They came in, figured out what was and wasn’t going, asked if they could bring their van closer to the front door, asked if I had any requests or questions then they just got on with it… They were a little gutted there was no trolley in the back of their van (apparently it should NEVER be taken out), but they didn’t complain… Instead they lugged the boxes and furniture manually and 40 minutes later they were done, and getting ready to go.

Mr Tom clearly wasn’t as impressed as I was with the removal men, so as soon as they started moving boxes around off he went for a little walk until the coast was clear again…

Little did he know that things for him, were going to get worse ;)

Mum came out to collect Tom and I, and she arrived to find us in an empty flat having pizza leftovers for breakfast. He was already pretty stressed about the situation, so I figured getting him into the front loading cat carrier was going to be hard… I didn’t think it would be near to impossible.

I only got Mr Tom last Christmas, and until the day I collected him, he’d never been in a pet carrier… and has never really liked them… So, after an hour of trying to get him in the carrier, and considering I was WAY overtired and very emotional I started crying… How could I have gone through everything else and been OK, but to have started crying about a cat not wanting to get in his carrier – boy, this was getting crazy…

So, in sheer desperation I decided that I didn’t want to fight with him over it, and so off we went to the Vet to try and buy a top loading carrier (which I always wished I’d bought in the first place). Surprise, surprise… they didn’t have one big enough, so we found ourselves at the pet supermarket shopping instead…. We bought the biggest one available, and although it looked a little smaller than my other one I thought it would be alright (how wrong was I?)…

After getting a cheeseburger each, mum and I headed back to see if we’d be any more successful this time… Mr Tom was a little curious about the new carrier, so came over to see what this was all about…. I just lifted him and put him in, he was NOT impressed… it was a little too small for him… the pet store said they would take it back if it was too small, so I decided that he was in, so we’d go… and I could change it another time…

We loaded Tom in the car, packed everything else in, and headed back to my parents place… I’d already almost nodded off in the car a couple of times (which isn’t great as I was the one giving driving directions – tut, tut) and as soon as we got in, I let Tom out of the carrier, sat on the bed, and was asleep in what seemed like seconds.. I only slept for about 90 minutes off and on, but it felt like the past couple of weeks had taken their toll, and I could have slept for a hundred years (OK, slight exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like).

Originally I’d planned on returning to the flat to clean and spend the night, but the boys were so happy to see me and Tom was pretty unsettled and nervous, so I decided it was best to stay the night with them. He hadn’t left the bedroom at all since we’d arrived, but at about 4.30am he decided he wanted to explore, so kept walking on me til I finally got up and did a walk round with him… Then he was content and let me get back to bed and curled up too…

I treated myself today, and had a lay in, til about 9.30am… Although I still don’t feel caught up on sleep, it felt really good to sleep for more than 3 consecutive hours…