Saturday Sommelier...

Backblipped 11.07.21

David woke me up at 8.30 to say when he'd gone downstairs he'd found Lola panting heavily and she was very clingy.  She normally follows him everywhere but she was literally sticking to his leg!  He'd brought her upstairs with him and she jumped up beside me, cuddling right in, and sure enough, she was panting much harder and faster than could be considered normal.  I checked her over as best I could.  Ears not too hot, eyes clear, tummy soft.  But something definitely wasn't right.

As well as this worrying occurrence, the back up battery in the smoke alarm in the hall was beeping, so David went downstairs to fix that and Lola attempted to get off the bed to follow him, but just stood and looked at the floor for a few seconds, then cuddled back into me.  Not herself at all.

When David came back upstairs after fixing the battery alarm, I wondered out loud if the beeping had spooked her.  It wasn't very loud (David hadn't heard it till he opened the bedroom door, I didn't hear it till I woke up) but it was high pitched and I wondered if it had been beeping for a long while and troubling her and she couldn't get to us (to save us from the beep :-) and we didn't go to her.  

She's never been worried by noises before (she raises hear head to thunder and fireworks then nods off again) and the smoke alarm goes off fairly regularly (it's how David knows whatever food he is grilling is ready!) and again, it's never bothered her.  I suppose the only difference is we're normally there when these noises happen.

Anyway, we phoned the vet for advice and were told to take her in to be checked over.  Ah.  No car!  Great!  Phoned our friends T & V who live a few minutes away (with Lola's retriever pal Milly) and Veronica very kindly ran David and Lola to the vet.  She had settled a bit by this point and eaten some toast (David gave her the corner of his just to check she had her appetite. She did! :-)

Meanwhile I got on with getting the Korean beef into the slow cooker and doing the final prep for Dr T and LeeAnne's visit.  David texted me at midday to say the vet had given Lola the all clear and agreed it looked as though something had spooked her.  Told to keep and eye on her and get back in touch if we were worried.

She wolfed her lunch when she returned and the panting had reduced, so we relaxed.  Jeez, I worry about her just as much as I do about Alan when he's not well!

Dr T and LeeAnne duly arrived (that pleased Lola very much :-)  Drinks and nibbles sorted, Dr T and I sat chatting on the decking beside the pool while LeeAnne relaxed her sore muscles by having a lovely float gentle swim.  

More chat then dinner was served.  My first time making slow cooked  Korean Beef and I will definitely make it again.  We all had seconds so I assume everyone else enjoyed it too.  Served with rice and Korean green salad.

My homemade strawberry cheesecake (see extra) was tasty but the filling rather soft, despite chilling for 24 hours.  Next time I will go back to my traditional recipe of cream cheese and double cream (and whatever flavour) for the filling, as I know that chills solid. It was also hilarious trying to cut it as the knife slipped through the quickly softening filling, but struggled to cut through the concrete biscuit base!  lol 

Dinner over, we settled back into the garden room for lots more chat (it was so lovely to be indoors after our last hilarious get together under the gazebo in the pouring rain! :-) with Lola abandoning David to snuggle on the sofa with LeeAnne.

I think we rolled to bed at the very respectable time of 1.30am :-))