A Week Off, Slugs, Snails and the Cat

So, a week off, stuff planned, and not done... well, much really. Actually, that's a lie. I did clean the mould off from around the kitchen window, and the window pane itself, so now I can see the greenhouse at the bottom of the garden (I'm loving that greenhouse). And I finally accepted that only I can see the coffee and various other unspeakables on the kitchen cabinet doors and wall, and cleaned them myself, with much loud muttering. I've given the loo and the bathroom a good clean, only to have my work undone by the P&J, who had somehow got oil all over the end of one leg of his jeans, and then proceeded to tread it all over the bathroom carpet, and then the landing and dining room carpets.
  I also managed to get most of the stuff we cut down the previous weekend into compost bags, which the OH took up the tip for me- but not without first telling a neighbour all about it, as though he had to carry it to the tip bag by bag, and not just dump it all in the car.
  And we did manage to get up to the allotment yesterday, to hack back the jungle that has grown up since we were last up there. It looks tidy now, though we have yet another series of alternating warm and sunny/ wet and windy days forecast, which is generally great growing weather, though, unfortunately,  for weeds and grass as well.
 The peas are looking good. I've never seen them look so lush. I'm expecting great things from them. The beetroot has disappeared- again, but some of the carrots have made it out. The potatoes look okay, except the ones next to the empty plot next door, which is evidently harbouring snails and slugs by the thousands. As are my fennel plants, which seem to be being used as a snail hotel this year, and from which the slimy creatures are attacking my onions. The snails have been evicted, and I have left word for the local thrush population to get its act together.
  The beetroot is now being raised in the greenhouse, where neither pigeon or

slug can get at them. I spent this morning transplanting them into cardboard pots (the beetroot, silly) so they can be planted without disturbing their roots, when they're big enough to have a chance of withstanding slugs and pigeons.

While I was planting, our resident blue-tit parents were busy feeding their young, which they have hatched in a hole in the apple tree I'm trying to cut down. It's rather a stupid place to raise a family ( though I am, of course, too polite to point that out to them), as the hole is within easy reach of the cat, and there could be a massacre when the fledglings try to leave. Consequently, I have wrapped some chicken wire around the tree, to make life difficult for the cat, when she's feeling better.
  Yes, the cat has not been well. She was cheerfully batting the dog around the head yesterday, but this morning she didn't want to move, didn't want to eat, and, as she's 15 years old and has been eating rats, we took her up to the vets' so I could spend another £80.
 

It turns out she has got a throat infection and a temperature, so that was 2 lots of antibiotics and a bottle of metacalm, and instructions to bring her back tomorrow if she's still not eating, or Sunday, if she's no better. Get her something tasty, he said, something that will tempt her. So we got her some of Auntie Lilly's chicken dinner. She (the cat, not Aunt Lilly) nearly took my hand off, and actually demanded the second half of the tub when she'd finished the first. So I assume the antibiotics are starting to work. Unless, of course, it is all a ruse  to get a better quality cat food...