Keeping up appearances.......

HappyNow

Aurora_ wrote: »

Hi Happy,

I'm a long time lurker but thought I had to post about Ralph (love the name btw!).

Our dog had a similar thing a few years ago when she ran out of the drive and straight into a white van man going 40mph down our road. She was completely paralysed on both back legs, but after a few weeks and some rest for the swelling to go down, she recovered almost completely. All she has now is a bit of a limp and she gets tired quicker if she has lots of walks. Very pleased because she's a big dog and if she hadn't have recovered she'd have had to be put down. So miracles can happen- animals are amazingly resilient things!

Anyway, good luck to Ralph and to you for your debt-busting- great work so far!
Ax

Hi Aurora, thanks for dropping by and for the good wishes. I'm pleased your doggy made such a good recovery, especially as his injury sounds similar to Ralph's - it makes me feel more optimistic .

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I'm so *pleased* about Ralph! Thank you for letting us know. (At least the boiler didn't need replacing!)

Thanks Honey Bear. His appointment is at 9:10 this morning so I will know more then and I will update my diary when I get back.
The engineer actually did suggest it might be cheaper in the long-run to just replace the boiler, but that would have been well over £1000 so we just couldn't do it. We should get another few years out of this one now, and I don't want to invest any more money in the rental house than we have to - if we were spending on houses, I would prefer new kitchen worktops for this one!

Piquant_2

Glad Ralph is on the mend :T I hope the bill's not too bad, unfortunately, it's one of those unforeseen bills that has to be dealt with, completely unavoidable. Don't go beating yourself up about it - that's an order...

Box_of_Fluffies

Yippee. :j So pleased to hear Ralph is on the mend. Hope the visit to the vets goes well and that the bill isn't too bad.

poohbear59

I am sorry to hear about your poor old cat. But delighted to hear he is on the mend. It is very common for old cats to sit in odd places. Mine took to sitting in the road or under car wheels when she became senile. Eventually she ended up with a broken leg and had to be put to sleep. She was 23.

Bad news on the boiler too. I hope you get many more years out of it once it is repaired.

HappyNow

Well the vet has discharged Ralph . He said that he will probably never regain full awareness of where his back legs are so he will always walk oddly, but he has no pain. His quality of life is still good, and he is back home guilt-tripping me into treating him like a prince! The bill was £78, which I thought was quite reasonable for three trips, one of them on a Sunday.

The boiler has been repaired and the bill already received for £380 which is slightly less than the quoted £400.

I need to check our bank accounts to see exactly how much we've over-spent this month. I'm not looking forward to updating my sig on 15th August . On the plus side, all of it was essential, there has been no waste and I can account for every penny. Couldn't have said that a year ago .

Aurora_

Glad to see Ralph is home and well!

Ax

HappyNow

Just a quick middle-of-the-sleepless-night update to keep up the momentum.

I've been working really long hours this week doing overtime for a special task. I very rarely get the chance of extra hours so I jumped at it, but the task is urgent and has to be completed by Saturday. So I've done four twelve-hour days and should complete it tomorrow by 8pm. Shame I can't sleep really to recover! We've nothing planned for the weekend so I will relax and sleep a lot then. The overtime should net me about £250 extra which will be paid in September.

Tomorrow all our winter hay will be delivered. We normally have it delivered 50 bales at a time throughout winter, but we've cleared some storage space and are buying the lot straight from the field tomorrow. It's cheaper straight from the field, but of course we have to pay for it all at once (not until Wednesday though, which is payday).

Our cat is getting better and better. He's staying out at night again now so he must be feeling well.

Back to bed now, although it's 5am and the alarm goes off at 6!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning HN, pleased to hear the news about Ralph.

Sounds like you will need a good rest over the weekend to recover, but the extra money will be a help.

Just checked back on your post and if the hay is arriving tomorrow, I can't see you having much of a rest

Tiily x

grannyx2

Glad to hear that Ralph has got over his nasty accident x

HappyNow

I've been hiding from my diary. If you look at my signature you will see why.

Yesterday was payday and my debts are £827 higher than they were last month . I knew it was happening and I can account for all of it. It was all essential spending/disasters, none of it is due to waste or extravagance. But it still puts me back to the same debt figure as April. It makes me appreciate just how vulnerable we are financially and I MUST find a way to get our savings pots built back up. Not this month though.

I'm not going to just accept it, I am going to have the leanest month EVER and make a payment a day towards MBNA - even if it is just a pound - and record it on here. Starting now:

TODAY I have to do an essential shop. I have £10 of clubcard vouchers which I am doubling up to £10 each for pet food and frozen food. That's £20 of essential purchases which aren't coming out of my grocery budget, so I'm paying the £20 off MBNA.