Derek is Baaaack

Obviously many amazing things have happened in the world since I left it to enter monastic seclusion at Boo Mansions. We must talk about the Pope for instance. It is, as you can imagine in our multi faith, hotly debating household, a topic of great interest to us all, and much has been said, particularly by the children, on this topic.

It bears repeating.

But that will have to wait.

We must speak of Derek.

Derek has had a rather traumatic week in her very short and already fur raising life.

You know that since we rescued her from a ditch and then made her have her lady bits taken out, and forced her to wear a giant plastic cone on her head, that she is not unknown to tragedy.

It has been nothing. NOTHING, compared to the horror of moving house.

We thought about it every which way, when we knew we were moving, but we simply could not find a solution where Derek would sail through the choppy waters of moving in a calm manner. In the end we went with leaving her at the old house for as long as possible in the hope that it would be familiar enough not to freak her out entirely.

We had to shut her in the bathroom on day one, as the men who were packing us up were all over the house like ants, and we had visions of Derek underfoot and everyone dying in a heap of fur and guts.

She did not like this at all, as you can imagine.  I did take her out for a small tour of the house so she could see why we were shutting her in the bathroom.

It did not help.

On the second day they needed to clear the bathroom, so we put her in Tilly’s room.

This did not help either.

Then, when the removal men had gone, and most of the boxes had been delivered to our new house, we went and got her.

She sat on my lap, wrapped in a blanket, looking most unimpressed.  Mainly because every time I put her in the car we go to the V E T, so she was already expecting the worst.  Then we just kept driving and driving, and she didn’t like the traffic lights because they were too bright and they LOOMED.

Every time one came up she wailed.

It was awful.

She hated the house for the first two days, and spent most of her time squashing herself between boxes, squeaking piteously.

Then she decided that we weren’t going to leave her, and the men with big stompy boots weren’t coming back and she began to relax.

Now it is her palace.

She absolutely loves it.

She loves the fact that it is pretty much open plan downstairs, and there are loads of shiny floors to whiz about on.

The huge bank of windows down the dining room wall give her Derek Cinemascope to the fat wood pigeons and woodpeckers beyond, and it is all very thrilling.

She went outside today with the children, to explore the garden, which is a mess.  She skittered along fence tops and galloped through the grass and had the time of her life.

I am glad she likes it. She’s going to be here a long, long time.

 

This is Derek’s favourite view out of the windows.