Grounded

Tigear has been grounded by a deer. For the second time in three days he thundered into the house this afternoon having been chased by a roe that seems to have taken up residence somewhere in the woods along our stream, probably driven down the hill by the forestry activity further up.

She has a fawn at heel and is barking from time to time so she is clearly not going to put up with any nonsense from a cat even if it is one as pushy and normally fearless as Tigear. Consequently under the table in the conservatory must have seemed a good place to hide for a bit till the heat died down.

I have been grounded too. I was meant to be in Orkney tonight at the start of a two day visit by the Parliament's Rural Affairs Committee to which I was greatly looking forward. However early yesterday evening I started to suspect that I had a kidney stone developing ( I have had them on and off for the past 15 years or so) and by 10.00pm I was in a lot of pain and discomfort and vomiting regularly.

There is only one thing that can be done in these circumstances and by now I know the routine so after Catheen had spoken to NHS 24 we waited to hear where I was to go. It turned out that the nearest GP on duty was in Strachur so we made a very uncomfortable journey there as fast as we could.

By half past midnight Dr Robbie Coull had given me a large injection of an anti inflammatory which works remarkably quickly - so quickly that I was even chatting again on the journey back home, which we reached about twenty past one. But travel today was out of the question, alas.