Eventful sunday morning
Now that its warming up again and I'm still in the mood to get healthy I've been trying to get out on the mountain bike and get a few miles under my belt. The ultimate plan is to get back into shape and to take on the london to brighton ride again next year and this time make it up Ditchling Beacon without getting off my bike or succumbing to cramp.
Anyway,
I have been doing a smallish route recently which goes around the outskirts of Uckfield and takes in most of the nearby villages and works out to about 15 miles or so and thats what i was planning on sunday morning, but about 2 minutes into my ride a woman walking her dogs waved me down asking for help, she had found a cat who'd got himself stuck on some barbed wire and wasnt sure what to do.
I jumped off my bike and over the fence into the field and ran down to take a look, the poor moggy had tried to jump over the top of the fence which was barbed and didnt quite make it and got myself caught. He was quite distressed and trying to free himself but ended up wrapping himself around the wire and just making things worse.
I got on the phone to the RSPCA (just! thanks o2 and your crappy signal everywhere!) who then dispatched one of their team but was at least an hour away.
We didnt know how long he'd been hanging upside down for (all night for all we knew), so I comforted him to calm him down and then put my arms though the fence and tried to cradle him so he wasnt hanging from his skin any more, in the meantime the woman went home to try and find a box or something we could rest him on until the RSPCA peep turned up.
Whilst I was waiting the land owner turns up thinking that im trying to steal his fencing! I explain what had happened and he ran back to his house and got some big clippers and a box and fairly soon we had free'd the little lad albiet with a big piece of barbed wire through its skin all twisted and entwined with his fur.
At this point we were able to move him so decided to get him to the nearest vets, the lady from earlier had returned with her car and i followed on two wheels and he was taken in at Starns and Gatward vets in Uckfield. (bear in mind it was still before 9am on a sunday, so big thanks to them).
I went back to the area we found him and started knocking doors trying to find his owner but wasnt getting very far. But then got a call from the vet. Luckily the poor chap was chipped so they were able to contact his owner fairly quickly.
After an hour and a half in the operating room young Chilli all fixed up with a nice big 6 inch wound/scar to show his mates and His owner picked him up that evening.
Later that evening I got a call from a very thankfull owner (who had actually looked me up on google and found me via twitter earlier) on and said he wanted to thank me and brought round a bottle of wine which was very nice of him.
Chilli is doing well and just needs to be kept in for a couple of weeks to recover and then he'll be out getting up to mischief again!
So health wise I didnt do too well last week, i'll have to make up for that this weekend!
(Apologies for any typos, i type quite quickly and theres no spell check on posterous!)
