Well, May didn’t quite turn out how I thought it would. By that I mean, even in a pandemic, where your entire life is turned upside down, you can still end up on a spin cycle that you didn’t see coming, on top of the pandemic that you kind of saw coming, but still can’t believe arrived.

Our little ferret Maisy (pictured above) got a respiratory viral infection at the beginning of May and died. She fought so hard to stay, but in the end, her little body just couldn’t take anymore and we lost her on our wedding anniversary. It was horrible, and I miss her everyday.

At the same time, I noticed black dandruff coming off our five month old rescue cat Sparkles. She literally is a rescue cat, as I rescued her from the next door neighbours garden in January, when she was a tiny, lost scrap of a kitten. I casually googled black cat dandruff and discovered she was INFESTED with cat fleas. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a bit of a phobia when it comes to fleas, and trying to deal with that, while Maisy was so sick, was stressful.

Thank God for my washing machine. Fifteen boiled loads of washing later, the house was sanitised and scrubbed, although my friendly vet informed me that problem will be with us for years, and in fact, I’ll probably never get rid of the billions of flea eggs around the house. So Lottie, our remaining ferret, and Sparkles settled into their new routine in our very quiet house. It didn’t last. A few weeks later, hubby and I agreed to foster three gorgeous ferrets from the ferret shelter. They needed a home, and they all come with physical issues, so they can’t be adopted out. We thought it was the least we could do to help out the shelter. Lottie and Sparkles were totally unimpressed with the new arrivals, but after a lot of squealing, chasing of the cat and general ponging of their scent glands, the tribe has now come together harmoniously, so we have five animals in our care.

Great, I thought. Everyone is getting along and it looks like we’ve flattened the flea curve so things can settle down now.

But no. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Turns out, as soon as I let my guard down on the flea front, we had a second wave. The new ferrets came with their own fleas, so everyone got reinfested, and all had to have baths and be dosed with flea treatments. Sparkles sleeps in our bed, and the new arrivals had been bounding all over the bed, and into every dark corner, and couch pillow in the house. It’s winter now so I can’t possibly wash everything again. The vacuum cleaner and flea comb have become my best friend.

Pandemic dramas. They bring their own special problems. Along with the fleas, I think I’ve given myself RSI from kneading bread dough, and whisking flour into butter and sugar, because I’ve been in a baking frenzy trying to get through a huge bag of flour I stupidly purchased, thinking we would never see flour again. The flour is poor quality too, so it hasn’t been a very satisfying experience. Thankfully I don’t have a stash of 540 toilet rolls to work through too. Honestly, 2020 is just the weirdest year all round. What else is going to happen?

We shall have to wait and see. Meanwhile, our house has closed its borders to any new animals coming to visit. A third wave of fleas is not going to happen (until next summer when apparently all the eggs will hatch – dear God).

Stay safe and flea free