1988 got off to a rather painful start for Sollee. On New Years Day he was looking rather sorry for himself and the next morning he was at the vets with an abscess on his bum. Apart from vaccinations and his neutering this was Sollee's first 'proper' trip to the vet. To say he didn't like it is something of an understatement. Well, who can blame him? It can't have been much fun having your bottom inspected and that painful lump squeezed, which is what the vet did. Just a little pressure and a foul smelling torrent shot up his arm.... he hadn't intended that to happen!
Sollee came home a rather subdued dog, who throughout the day would check his bottom then give me dirty looks... it was obviously my fault and he wasn't very forgiving until the pain went.
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In February Father was finally granted Attendance Allowance and I officially became his carer. As a result we persuaded the landlord that something needed doing about the chimney situation at the cottage: light a fire in the dining room and the smoke filled the sitting room and vice versa. The only way to prevent the place filling with smoke and fumes was to have a fire going in both rooms all the time or leave the back door permanently open. Neither was an agreeable solution. Who can live with an outer door permanently open? Crazy! As for two fires going 24/7? Well, we couldn't afford that. But we had to have a fire going all day, every day in the sitting room which, because of his ill health, I had converted into a kind of bed-sit for Father.
It had taken years to get this situation sorted. The problem lay with the fact that our landlord was not the owner of the property. He was a Tenant Farmer and the cottage was part of the farm he rented. This meant he was not responsible for structural repairs, his landlord was. So, I badgered my landlord and he, in turn, badgered his. Finally we had a result, builders came and gave their 'experienced opinion' and a few days into March they came back and the chimney breast in the dining room was torn out and new flues installed; then the scaffolding went up, the old pots came down and a pair of H pots were fitted. I hated/hate them. It looks like a damned space ship has landed on the stack and there was only a marginal improvement on the smoke situation. We could now get away with one fire and a smoke free home as long as one bedroom window was kept open (it depended on the wind direction as to which window we needed open).
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Sollee loved all the building work, and the builders ... they always had something tasty in their lunch boxes. While they worked in the dining room he parked himself on one of the benches under the south window and scrutinised all they did. He could have become a Master Builder the amount of attention he paid; well maybe a Master flu installer. I was amazed at how patient he had suddenly become, the whole operation apparently fascinated him and at the end of the first day, when the men had gone home, leaving a large section of new flu pipe exposed, I caught Sollee with his paws in the grate gazing up into the gaping shaft above. His brow was puckered, his eyebrows bristling more than usual. Clearly he had a lot of questions ... but who to ask? I wondered if perhaps he had been a builder (or a chimney sweep) in a past life!
