Tales from a Young Vet: Part 3 of 3: Mad cows, crazy kittens, and all creatures big and small

That evening we went out to supper with some family friends at a pub out in the country and there was a tempestuous storm. The rain was so torrential that by the time we set off for home the roads were flooded. Luckily we’d taken our Land Rover Defender or we certainly wouldn’t have made it back.

The storm was so severe that large parts of Kent were flooded and dozens of properties damaged after the River Medway burst its banks. We were very lucky that we weren’t in a flooded area, but later we learned that four of our livery yard’s stables had collapsed, though luckily none of the horses were hurt. The buildings had literally been lifted off their footings, over the heads of their occupants, and blown across the yard owner’s garden. Thankfully Tammy and Elli’s stables were still standing, although theirs were partially flooded. Tammy was left standing in two inches of water and was pretty unsettled because the horses that lost their stables had escaped and were galloping wildly around.

Jacques was due to arrive at Heathrow early the next morning. I set off in plenty of time, but the traffic was so heavy that I ended up getting there forty-five minutes after his plane had landed. I managed to sprint across the airport to the arrival gate and got there, madly out of breath, just before he appeared. Minutes later I leaped into his arms, thrilled to see him, and he picked me up and spun me around.

‘What took you so long? I’ve been here for ages,’ I joked.

‘Mmm, sure you have. When are you ever early?’ he said, putting me back down on the floor.

‘OK, you rumbled me, I’ve just got here. But pretty good timing all the same, right?’

But Jacques was too distracted for jokes. He had made it to England – but his suitcase hadn’t. We spent another hour in the airport while he spoke to various staff and they searched for his case, but it appeared to have vanished and in the end we had to leave without it.

Jacques was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. His coat, along with everything else, was in his luggage. He did have a jumper with him but he insisted that he wasn’t worried about the cold – unlike most people who grow up in hot countries, he doesn’t seem to feel it. If anything it’s the heat he minds.

We went out later that day to get him a change of clothes and a toothbrush. He was still in his T-shirt and I kept telling him to please for goodness sake put on the jumper because it was late December and freezing. But he just didn’t seem to feel it.

‘I’m really not cold at all,’ he insisted, while shoppers in coats and scarves turned to look at him.

‘Well, please put a jumper on for me then. You’re embarrassing!’

His tolerance of the cold was well and truly tested that afternoon when I took him down to the stables with me to muck out the horses and check on the flooding. He got stuck in without a word of complaint, which earned him a fair few Brownie points.

That evening the staff at Heathrow called to say they had found his case, which probably came in on a later flight, and would send it down to us with a driver that evening. He was relieved to have his clothes but I teased him: ‘Never mind your clothes; I’m just glad my Christmas present is here.’

We were all at breakfast the next morning when the phone went. It was a friend of Mum’s who worked for a local animal rescue charity. They had a dog, a Staffie, which was in a local pound and was due to be put down that evening. Pounds can only keep dogs for a relatively short time, and if they’re not claimed or homed they have to be put to sleep as they just don’t have space to keep them. The friend asked Mum whether she would go and pick him up and keep him overnight. A foster home was being arranged, but they wouldn’t be able to take him until the next day – Christmas Eve.

Mum asked if we would mind. Of course we all said we’d love to have him and Mum said good, because she’d already agreed. She’s a dog-lover, and at the thought of a dog needlessly losing its life, especially at Christmas, she was ready to drop everything and go to its rescue. The pound was a thirty-minute drive away, so, calling out that she would be back in just over an hour, she shot out of the door, still shrugging on her coat.

She arrived back leading a black Staffie with a comical white patch over one eye. His name was Chunky. He was young, perhaps only three or four, and he was almost blind. He charged into the house and banged into everything and everyone, jumping all over the furniture and all of us so that we re-named him Clunky.

The Staffordshire bull terrier is a medium-sized, very popular English breed, squat, muscular and not the prettiest of dogs. A lot of people think they’re aggressive and mean – probably because that’s how they look – but Staffies are actually much softer in nature than they appear; they can be reliable, intelligent, affectionate and very good with children.

Clunky, however, was not yet ready to be an ambassador for his breed. After half an hour of manically racing round the house knocking everything over, including Tosca, we decided we’d better keep him in the conservatory at the back. Two blind dogs together was just not a good combination. I took him out there with a bowl of food, water and a bed, and spent a bit of time calming him down. Poor Clunky was clearly very unsettled; he’d gone from one place to another and didn’t know where he lived or who owned him. Any dog finds this disconcerting, and for a dog that is also blind it’s especially hard. Clunky probably hadn’t had much human contact in recent weeks and he was desperate for attention.

Throughout the rest of the day all five of us took turns taking him out to the garden and then taking him into the conservatory and doing our best to settle him. But he remained jumpy and edgy, and it was hard work to get him to sleep. Jacques, who has a soft spot for Staffies, spent a lot of time with him and seemed to have a natural touch; he soothed Clunky and eventually got him settled down on his bed.

That night Mum and Dad took Tosca and Paddy upstairs with them, and I decided to sleep downstairs with Clunky. I didn’t want to leave him alone all night – he didn’t know what to do with himself and might well bark, cry, chew the furniture or hurl himself around. Jacques offered to do it, but I said no, he was still tired from travelling and he needed to sleep. I made up a bed for myself on the living room floor and took Clunky in there with me, putting his bed next to mine.

Despite my ministrations it took him a few hours to settle down, during which he paced restlessly, jumping on me every time I was in danger of falling asleep. Eventually, however, he fell asleep next to me and we all had a few hours of peace.

Mum’s friend rang back after breakfast. A foster home had been found for Clunky in Cornwall, and to get him there would involve a relay of drivers. Mum was asked to do the first leg of the journey and take him to the M25, where the next driver would meet her. He would be at his new foster home in time for Christmas Day. From there he would have treatment for his eyes, and some training, before being advertised for adoption into a permanent home. ‘Happy Christmas, Clunky,’ I said, giving him a last cuddle. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be all right, there’s a good home waiting for you.’

I waved goodbye as his milky eyes peered out of the back of Mum’s car, and I felt sad to see him go. We’d bonded during our night on the living room floor and although I was tired, I felt incredibly happy that he was going to have a fresh chance at life. It would be desperately sad to put a young dog like that to sleep, just because no one wanted him. Clunky deserved a loving family and a warm, safe home.

On Christmas Day we had a full house, with both sets of grandparents and plenty of other family and friends. After endless opening of presents and an enormous lunch, rounded off with one of Grandma Hardy’s Substantials – a mammoth trifle that would probably feed us all for a month – we set out for a walk. After that, Jacques and I went to the yard to visit the horses and feed them, before collapsing back at home in a warm, over-fed, happy daze.

Whenever Jacques comes to visit, Grandma and Grandpa Hardy like to recall the story of when they were in South Africa and they saw a lion kill a warthog. They always start with, ‘When I was in South Africa … have you heard this story?’ When we murmur, ‘Yes, actually we have,’ they carry on with, ‘Well, let me tell it to you again …’ and off they go. Their trip to South Africa a few years earlier was a present from Dad, my uncle and my twin aunts, and it was such a highlight for them that no one really minds hearing the stories again, even if it is for the umpteenth time.

Jacques and I decided to go up to London after Christmas to visit the Natural History Museum for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, and then go on to see The Lion King, a musical that’s close to both our hearts.

Jacques is a very accomplished wildlife photographer himself, and he loved walking around the exhibition, viewing incredible photos, many by photographers he knew. I told him he should enter some of his own photographs the following year. I was sure his work was good enough.

We managed to get standing tickets for The Lion King, after running around Leicester Square ticket offices and the theatre’s booking office. I loved it, although Jacques insisted on pointing out the flaws in the animal combinations and the costumes.

That night, after a really happy day together, we got on the train home and I took it as an opportunity to bring up a deeper conversation.

‘Soooooo, today has been nice, hasn’t it? Are you enjoying your stay in England?’ I said.

‘Of course, I’m with you. I always enjoy my time with you,’ Jacques replied.

‘Thank you, I love being with you, too, but what do you think of England? If you take me out of the equation …’

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘It wouldn’t be in the equation without you.’

‘Yes, but what I’m trying to get at is, do you like it enough to stay here in the long term. Or do you see us in South Africa?’

‘Either, love,’ he replied. ‘But why do you need to talk about that now? That kind of decision is still ages away, and we should cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘Yes, but surely we should at least explore and discuss our options. You could come here and do environmental work, or I could be a vet there. Maybe Thys wants to take on another vet soon so he can slow down and retire?’

‘Jo, stop now,’ he asserted. ‘We will talk about it, but not now. We don’t know what our circumstances are going to be in a few years’ time, so just drop it, please.’

He sounded frustrated and I knew the conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere. I slunk down in my seat, staring silently out of the window. Jacques liked to tell me I was a champion at sulking, which I adamantly denied, although in my more relaxed moments I could see where he was coming from.

When we had a mini-stand-off like that, he would always come forward first to break the silence and coax me out of my grumpy mood. We both wanted to make up, and we did, but I was aware that we never resolved or even fully discussed how we would bring our two different worlds together.

What mattered, I told myself, was that we both wanted to be together. Everything would follow from that, but it wasn’t going to be easy. One of us would need to move countries, leaving family, friends and work behind. It was huge even to contemplate. And Jacques’ reluctance to discuss it did worry me at times. Was that because he knew how hard it would be for either – or both – of us? Or simply because he liked to deal with the here and now, while I worried a lot more about the future?

Whatever happened, and wherever we ended up, I knew how lucky I was in Jacques. He had goodness ingrained in him, he was a fantastic companion, and he loved me.

On New Year’s Eve Jacques and Dad played with Dad’s new wood chipper while I went to ride both the horses. We went out to supper with friends that evening, and then some of my friends came over and we played a card game called Jungle Speed. The idea is that you deal out the cards and then go round the circle one at a time, turning over your top card and placing it on your pile. If yours matches someone else’s card, you grab the totem – a small wooden pole about five inches long, which is placed in the middle.

There are very few rules when it comes to grabbing the totem; you can fight, twist and pull to get it away from your opponent and claim the point. It’s a bit like an edgy version of Snap, and whenever we played we came away with a few scratches.

Playing with Jacques changed things a bit, though. He was twice as big and twice as strong as anyone else there and more often than not, if he turned over a matching card, his potential opponent would just let him have the totem. So even though he’d never played before, amazingly, he won!

As midnight arrived we sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’, or hummed it, as most of us didn’t know the words. And as the New Year dawned my first thought was, ‘This is make or break year for me. Am I really going to make it as a vet? And if I do, what kind of vet work do I want to do, and where?’

I really liked the idea of doing some charity work, so soon after the New Year I contacted a local charity, World in Need, to see if they needed a vet. I knew the director of the charity, and he said they could definitely find a use for me; I could be really valuable to them in East Africa, helping to teach families to look after goats that had been donated by Western charities. I loved the idea, and began to start planning the setting up of a sustainable veterinary project out there.

For the last few days of Jacques’ visit he and I went up to stay in the house in Welham Green. We wanted to spend a few days alone together and as all the boys were away, we had the house to ourselves. We planned to make trips in to London and cook a few romantic meals, but our vision of a cosy time together was cut short when we arrived to find the boiler had broken down. With no heating or hot water it was bitterly cold, and all we could do was to put on layers of jumpers (even Jacques felt the cold at this point) and then snuggle up together.

We had a couple of days out in London and spent our last day together studying – Jacques worked on his Masters’ dissertation and, with a zoo placement coming up, I did some frantic mugging up on birds and reptiles.

The time together was precious – we wouldn’t be seeing one another again until after I graduated in July so we were facing a six-month parting, our longest ever. On our last night we talked and agreed that, wherever we ended up, it would be together.

I found it hard every time I had to say goodbye to Jacques, but this time was awful. I drove him to the airport and we hugged goodbye, both of us struggling not to cry. Jacques always turned as he headed through security and said, ‘You have to go now.’ I would turn and walk away, but then I’d turn back and watch him until he disappeared. This time I sobbed, and I was still crying when I got back to my car. The next few months felt very bleak; I was facing several tough months of work and revision, all without him.