Hindsight

A relatively good night and although he kept waking me up, it was good to hear Flash's paws moving on the wooden floor as he galloped over snow covered meadows and dreamed of fields of Frisbees and tennis balls flowering in spring. Seems he was a bit more relaxed and could sleep and dream in peace.

Once up it was however clear that he was still very weak and voluntarily wanted to come indoors once the horses had been let out. Lots of debating and finally I set off with Luna for a walk while Angie went with two of the cats for a de-worm injection to our vet and to say we wanted to  have Flash seen by the large vet practice in Memmingen. She wasn't at all upset and wrote down for us all the various jabs Flash had received.
Difficult situation but Angie dealt with it well and the vet knows us well enough, after 14 years.

Angie got the final evening appointment at 7:00pm in Memmingen. A new vet who has recently joined the practice and we hadn't met. He could see what had happened:  Flash was grabbed by the other dogs teeth, picked up and in the process a hand sized piece of skin was literally torn away from the flesh and in this "pocket" the bugs had got to work. Best treatment would have been to immediately insert a drainage tube. The antibiotic treatment he did get was not wrong but........ yes a certain amount of risk with an old dog and sedation but a mild one would have been possible.

Angie went on to describe what instruments the vet then used. The warmed up left overs from yesterday we were trying to eat while she told me, suddenly didn't taste so good, so Lui the cat, Luna and Flash shared the meal and all seemed to enjoy the turmeric flavouring. Now we just have to pray he doesn't get blood poisoning, his very slight fever doesn't rise and all should be well in time.

Luna and I had done our long walk, I did take the camera along even though I had joined the 90% of camera owners who don't understand the "Aperture" setting. It could be I misread the email instructions which actually said "make a cup of tea", while I had emptied the entire contents of the coffee pot. Perhaps I might revisit the instructions and try again.

However it was time to put some colour back in our lives, similar to the colour the turmeric is giving our cooking and tongues at the moment. Just as Emmy wrote yesterday, it was time to show the world was not simply made up of black & white, border collies.

Our photo opportunity came as we approached the forester's hut. There was a spot of neon orange and reinforced by a gleaming red. We approached slowly, I switched on the camera - to Automatic - and at that moment up popped the driver seat and a head. Oh I thought, this is not the right time and place to be Bliping. But no passenger appeared and I made a weird combination of lip talk and sign language to ask if I could Blip the car. The window came down and the "late middle aged" driver having heard my reasoning,  laughed and agreed to  being Bliped, naturally as long as his number plate wasn't shown. He was simply taking a midday nap and at my suggestion set the seat back in to sleep mode.. I saved suggesting that he might consider not parking on a 4X crossroad and adjust his rear view mirror to have sight in a horizontal position.

I know someone in the UK who has the same car who happened to phone on Monday on his way home from a job somewhere on the A3. I told him that Red Bull (strongly associated with Audi) had just airlifted a F1 car equipped with snow chains to Kitzbuehl and was doing the downhill course, backwards but not at the same time as the skiiers. Hopefully if work/time allows he may get over to try out some snow driving himself.