FIT TO FLY

If moving house in Melbourne was traumatic for us, it must have been doubly so for our elderly cat. And then to add insult to injury, we were going to put her on a plane for four hours to fly her across to the other side of the universe.

But first, we made sure she had a moment of glory at the National Gallery of Victoria. They currently have a rather clever exhibition based on their collection of art related to cats and dogs. As part of the experience, you can upload images of your beloved pets and for a moment or two, they star in the gallery. You can see Indigo looking very wise in the bottom left hand corner.

In order to be able to travel, Indigo needed a "fit to fly" certificate. Every cat younger than 6 months and older than 12 years requires one. Indigo is over 80 years old in human years and has all the aliments you'd expect: arthritis, sagging bits, and it's hard for her to walk up stairs these days. And if one looked more closely, she's probably got a heart condition and/or cholesterol problems (from all those cheese/butter snacks she inveigles from us) and/or kidney disease. But as we said to the vet, "we promise we won't sue you if anything goes wrong". The risk had to be taken.

We'd arranged our departures so that Susan was ensconced in a Fremantle studio belonging to friends who were happy to have a cat while I managed the Melbourne end. Back on happy drugs (the cat, not me), I took her to the airport to send her on her way. 


Luckily, she didn't have the same experience as the poor moggy that was forgotten and ended up travelling between Melbourne and Christchurch three times.

She arrived on time and then had to face the next new home (with a few more to go). The thing about cats is that they can't show emotions on their face so we'll never really know whether we've been forgiven for all this disruption. Still, she does have some laps to sleep on so life isn't all hard.



PS If you want to see more stories about animals at airports check out the literally named Animal Airport on Amazon Prime.


 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FARWELL TO THE PINK HOUSE

Image
Susan and I decided to say 'goodbye' to 14 Ward Grove, Pascoe Vale South by sharing the moment with friends. Although the house was full of packed boxes, we invited people over to say farewell...and take a momento. We both made bold decisions about art and craft that had been part of our lives for years. For example, I'd had a Gustav Klimt print hanging on various bedroom walls since the 1970s. A tea pot I'd bought from a ceramist in Canberra last century. A Boda vase that I'd been given. There were smaller pieces from ceramic pots to glassware, vases, both antique and modern, knick knacks from all over the world, and even hats. And in contemplating a new home, we needed to leave some space for new acquisitions. This was a clean out where we knew each piece was going to bring pleasure to someone else and so it was much easier to let it go. Debora, Glenda, Jesse, Murray & Loretta Kath, Susan & Julie Gemma, Pam, Dale & David
Read more

PACKING UP

Image
How do you sort out a house you've been in for 24 years? I should confess upfront that Susan and I are not Kondo afficiondos nor did we watch all the episodes of Swedish Death Cleaning series so we had a lot of stuff to sort through. For what seemed like months, I was making twice weekly visits to St Vinnies to drop off everything from clothes to kitchenware. We hired a 12 metre skip and recruited our wonderful neighbour Mike to smash up furntiture that was no good to anyone.  I even threw out Livia, the polystyrene statue that had starred in a production of "Women Beware Women" back in the 1980s. Poor thing. Her head had falled off a number of times only be stuck back on with jewel encrusted gaffer tape.But being outside for nearly twenty years meant that she had lost her charm.  Mike, our helpful neighbour Goodbye to Livia Another cultural challenge was books. Susan is a re-reader of books and I always claim that I'm going to so between us, we had 16 or was it 17 fu...
Read more

CHECKING THE IDEA

Image
In July 2024, on my return from a (wonderful) couple of months in Europe, I called into Perth to check the validity of my spreadsheets. Was it possible to buy a home with all the requirements that Susan and I needed for a home: - a pool - 3 to 4 bedrooms (so Sebastian & our Eastern States friends could come to visit)  - 2 living areas (because we have such different tastes in television) - single story (Susan in particular is over stairs) - close to a good beach...and to Perth friends. I enlisted my real estate researcher friend Stephanie and we drove all over the city looking at suburbs - north as far as Gwelup and south as far as Hamilton Hill. What had looked good on paper was starting to look dodgy because the Perth real estate market took off in 2024. By the end of the year prices had increased by 25% while the Melbourne market had sunk by 5%. What we could afford was looking further and further away from ideal locations. However, traipsing around the town with Stephanie w...
Read more