vets and photoshop

Yesterday, we took our cats to the vets to have
their annual booster. Catching the cats to put in
their boxes was tricky, but not as bad as in
previous years. On the odd occasion in the past
when we've made an afternoon appointment for them,
they would disappear off outside all day, which
made us very anxious that we'd get to the vet on
time. Now we make the appointments for the first
slot of the day, and then on the day, we feed the
cats with some grub and lock them in the house.
Trying to catch them and get them inside the cat
carriers is great fun.

When they were smaller we used to use just the one
box, which led to funny/frustrating scenes when
trying to get the second cat into the box, with
its paws fully outstretched ("I'm not bloody
well going in there" attitude), while the other one
desperately scrabbles to get out, and dashes off.
So now we have two cat boxes.

Our vet passed on this tip to us, which I pass onto
you (if you're a cat lover)... open and up-end the
cat carrier, take hold of your cat by the scruff of
its neck and gently drop it into the box ...it's
really amazing how well this works .... no struggle
at all.

We were annoyed with our new vetinerary service for
sending out the immunisation reminder for June at
the end of June, and with hindsight at our own
stupidity for not putting a reminder ourselves on
our calendar to get them done. Their immunisation
cover went out of date and we had to pay for a new
course of two injections each.

I know a little about immunology, so I'm sceptical
as to why the cats need two shots rather than one
in this situation ... we took them in for the first
ones on 6 July, which was only a week overdue. The
phrase "sharp practice" springs to mind.

I spent a large part of yesterday at a U3A regional
meeting, the other side of Newark, which entailed a
hour's drive there and back in boiling hot sunshine.
The business content was rather dull, but the people
there made up for that - they were very friendly and
interesting.

What have I got on today? Well at some point I'll
need a nap, as unusually I went to bed last night at
9pm and woke at 3am. This morning, I'm going to a U3A
computer group meeting, to meet up with fellow nerds,
and then I'll do a bit of shopping and return a book
on Photoshop 7 to the central library.

This evening, we're going round the corner to Mrs C's
mum's for our evening meal. This is becoming a regular
Thursday evening event - evening at Grandma's Restaurant
in the Park, which is great as G. tries out new recipes
on us from week to week (recipes from the Saturday
Guardian mainly).

What have I been up to in the wee hours this morning?
Well having some fun with Photoshop. I find "Layers"
the hardest part of it to understand, so I've been
reading through the section on Layers in my library
book (Robert Shufflebotham's Photoshop 7 in Easy Steps).
I been experimenting with a couple of photos, and you
can see the results below.... ..... Oh Blogger! The
photos won't load up. I'll have another go tomorrow.