Well. I’m back. Mind you, this is not a well-thought-out return. I haven’t carefully considered what I intend to write about and how it shall be approached or anything as meaningful or strategic as that …

No. I’m here because two World Cup gambling providers decided to use the comments section on my blog for spamming purposes and I ducked in to delete them. Then I thought I really ought to write something; anything.

My long silence began upon my return to Oz nearly 11 months ago. When I arrived here, I discovered that my Polish housesitter – who had come highly recommended – had been just a tad psychotic. There were plastic plants in my garden beds, accompanied by treasured china ornaments that had belonged to my late mother and grandmother. All my pot plants had been disposed of, including one that contained some of my mother’s ashes.

The house had been neither dusted nor vacuumed during the 6 months I was away and everything was covered with a fine layer of white – it looked as though it had snowed inside. My kitchen surfaces were covered with half-used packets of food and these also occupied my entire refrigerator, half my freezer and the half of my pantry that I had cleared for her use. It took three large garbage bags to get rid of her leftovers. The kitchen floor turned to mud when I took a mop to it – you get the idea.

She had used my Tupperware and put it back in the cupboard unwashed. The same applied to my Mixmaster. She had glued things to the sides of my refrigerator and stove and a montage had appeared on my the door of my bedroom wardrobe. This depicted a $1 million house.  I know this because the figure appeared in the montage.

She had moved in (crappy) furniture and left it behind for me to dispose of. including several rather large trip hazards in my bedroom. By the end of the second day I was covered in bruises from bumping into all these extra obstacles in my house.

However, the worst part was the condition of my poor darling 14-year-old cat, who was the only reason I had a house sitter in the first place. I had wanted to minimise the stress she endured while I was gone for so long.

Her basket, scratch pole, feed dishes and toy had all been taken away from her – she has had these things since the day I brough her home all those years ago – and her reaction as they were found and reintroduced to her home brought tears to my eyes. Her physical condition made me sob my heart out.

My 4.8 kg cat now weighed 2 kg.

The house-sitter had told my step-father (who did the hand-over) that the vet had said she was a really good weight. When I contacted the vet he said he had told her repeatedly that her weight loss was too rapid and that she ought to contact me to have blood tests authorised immediately. The vet thought her kidneys were failing; a suspicion highlighted when he learned that the sitter wasn’t feeding her the correct food (that I had left plenty of money to buy during my absence.)

It turned out the Tash cat was suffering from hyperthyroidism and was close to death. Indeed, if I had returned a week later as originally planned, she wouldn’t have made it. She had been so horribly neglected that she panicked every time I left the house just to check the letter box. She had been banished from the bedroom and, judging by her frantic efforts to escape whenever I took her in there, this had been reinforced in a violent manner.

It took months of intensive nursing, but she is now back to her normal weight and she is calm and secure in her self again. I have since called all Lidia’s referees and informed them of my experience, reasoning that she wasn’t going to use me as a reference. I’ve also had her struck off the Housesitter registry.

All this had a disastrous effect on my own health and I was plunged into a severe MS attack which took months to recover from. Then I developed some other rather nasty symptoms and have spent the last four months being investigated for different forms of rheumatoid arthritis.

Before you ask – no, I haven’t finished my novel.

However, life is starting to get back under control and I should be more productive over the time to come. I have almost got the house back in order and the creative juices are starting to flow again.

So stay tuned.

ttfn,

S.

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