It's not a public inquiry

Wow, I got it right!

One of my employers (sounds good, huh?) has recently relocated so the admin work I do for them has been somewhat chaotic ("Okay, who's hidden the stationary cupboard?") and I've been catching up with the backlog of invoices. When I'd paid the outstanding backlog of unpaid urgent bills I started going through the rest of the paperwork, and was alarmed to find a letter advising me of a change of bank account for one of the companies I'd just paid. Oh bugger, I thought. Where have I sent the money? I searched the bank's website to try to find out how to cancel a payment but failed; and there was nobody else in the office to ask. So I worried and fretted. The next time I was in the office I explained it all to a director who was very understanding, which was nice.

Then I came across a bill for the new account we'd opened (with the same company) with the original bank details listed, and not the account number to which the letter had advised payments should be sent. This seemed a little odd, and I heard distant alarm bells ringing. I went back to the director, armed with all the paperwork as evidence. He rang the company queryline; no, they knew nothing about a change of bank account; no the signatory on the letter wasn't employed by them.

It seems I'd uncovered a con! I'm so very very glad that I didn't send any money to the 'new' account number, only to the usual one; I hope BT (for that is the company I was paying) appreciate my suspicious nature, and that they're grateful for the information that someone's trying to divert legitimate payments to a fraudulent account.

You put your left leg(s) out

Not a great deal of improvement re Beetle's health. She wants to come out for walks, but it takes a long time to get her moving once she's out; then after about five minutes she perks up and trots along faster than I can go. But when we get home again the curtain drops and the clouds come over her brain. She walks staggers into corners and can't get out. She gets stuck underneath dining chairs. She stands still, drops her head and wobbles violently until she's either grabbed and reassured (tail wags appreciatively) or, if you can't reach her in time, she falls over. I've put a carpet square down by her food bowl because when she puts her head down to eat (her appetite hasn't failed her!) her legs slide out from under her. However she manages to sleep very well by taking up three-quarters of the bed, leaving Ned and I clinging to our respective edges by our fingernails.

Good days, bad days

Beattie must have had a funny turn the other night - she was restless and fidgety, but not really more than usual. But in the morning she really wasn't herself; if she was human you'd think she'd had a mild stroke, but dogs don't get strokes in the same way as people do. She was very wobbly on her legs, with a definite list to port; she slithered down the stairs (me going backwards in front of her acting as a safety-net), bumped into the lefthand wall in the hall, bumped into the lefthand doorpost into the kitchen, and when on the tiled floor by the back door her left legs shot out sideways. She wanted to come for a walk, and being on the lead I could keep her going in the right (d'you see what I did there?) direction, and we went widdershins around the field because that was easier for her.

Granny dogsat her when I was at work and the at the end of the shift the vet popped in to check her over. There's nothing that you can pinpoint as being the cause, but clearly something's gone wrong somewhere - a blown fuse, maybe, making her left side weaker. So she has tablets to try to increase the blood flow to her brain and follow a watching brief. I don't think we've reached the end of the road yet, but we must be close to the final straight; I've told Beattie she's got to last out all the time Mother's here because I don't think I could handle Mother's distress as well as my own.