No exploding tapes or dossiers with 8×10 glossies: It was time for Kitty & QT to have a vet visit: vaccination boosters and a check up.

Our kittehs are lovely, but they’re not keen on being picked up and held, and we weren’t looking forward to getting the cats into carriers.

As it happened, QT was little trouble: a bit of whinging, and one brief struggle, and he was in.

Kitty, as usual, was made of sterner stuff. Hissing, scratching and biting, it took the two of us, lengths of wood to poke her out from under the bed, and a wrap in a towel to get her imprisoned. This time, Stymistress got the wounds.

The next item for our amusement was Kitty almost escaping: we have two cat carriers: one is a Pet Voyager, over 20 years old, and sturdy. We used that for QT, as he’s a big, lovely lummox of a cat. The other is a generic affair, with a flimsy front door that fell off during Kitty’s incarceration, was rapidly re-attached, and which she then managed to force open while I was putting my shoes on. A rapid shove and some gaffer tape saved the day for long enough to drive to the vets, but a mournful meow as we drove away signalled that maybe all was not well in the other kitteh prison, as we later discovered when QT was extracted, wet, from a stinky carrier. He’s such a soft lad, a big, strong cat, but soft as shite.

Once at the vets, warnings were given, but, true to form, they behaved like, well, pussycats. A rapid check over, a quick injection, a note that the cheap carrier was also losing its handle (don’t fancy dropping Kitty and dealing with an escape on the A461), re-imprison the cats (who went quietly), pay up, and home. Cats released, carrier washed out, and hopefully no more vet visits until next July.

QT has subsequently shown his appreciation by releasing a live mouse in the house (Kitty is more efficient and would kill it), leaving me to capture it in one of the many Indian takeaway containers I’ve fastidiously collected:

Oh, and a new carrier has been purchased.