Ginger's Big Adventure

It was gray and rainy as we drove to Cosy Cattery to pick Ginger up and take him to Manchester airport. He was bright-eyed and curious as we loaded him into the car. The cattery lady reported that he'd only had one soft BM while there, which was a relief to hear. However, she said he hadn't used his litter pan yet that morning. Oh well, we drove off prepared to have to make an emergency clean-up on the way. Since it was a Sunday morning and traffic was light we drove through Leeds. At one point we hit a stretch of road with several successive roundabouts and that, apparently, was Ginger's undoing. He began to make that curious howl he makes everytime he throws up. There was nothing I could do but watch as he threw up a prodigious amount of food. Our sense of smell alerted us to the fact that he'd taken a dump as well. Brad managed to pull over into a carpark on the side of the road. It was tricky business getting Ginger out of his carrier without allowing him to get soiled and preventing him from darting into the road. Brad held onto Ginger while I cleaned up his cage. Five minutes later we were back on the road again. We'd left the nasty roundabouts behind us and Ginger settled down for the ride to the airport.

We had to drop Ginger off at the British Airways freight terminal. I filled out some forms, handed over the necessary paperwork and then brought Ginger to the counter. The BA employee told me he had to weigh "it" and x-ray "it" first. I really didn't like hearing our purrboy being referred to as an "it". While in his carrier, Ginger took a short ride on a conveyor belt, then was whisked away by a forklift. My heart ached as he disappeared out of sight.

Ginger flew from Manchester on the 3:30 p.m. flight to London Heathrow. I called the Animal Reception desk in the evening to check in on him. I received a terse reply that he was fine. He will begin the second leg of his journey today. His flight from Heathrow departs at 1 p.m. and he is due to land at BWI at 4:30 p.m.

Today Brad got up early and took the Volvo in for a "pre-inspection" before his scheduled appt. at 10:30 with the shipping agent. As it turns out, there was no one else there at the motor pool and Brad was able to turn over the Volvo before 9 a.m. He is off at the office taking care of some business while I'm here at the library catching up on email and researching some info for our trip to Scotland. It looks like it will be chilly and I foolishly did not pack any long-sleeved shirts. They don't have any in stock at the BX, so I'll check in town later today.

We will leave tomorrow morning around 9 a.m. I may not be able to get online again until we return to Harrogate on 18 July. We'll only stay one night and then head down to London to turn over the Mondeo to Melanie, Heather and Graham's daughter. Then we'll spend a couple of nights in London before returning to Harrogate for two more nights. Then we fly back to the U.S.