Page 10 of A New Family at Puddleduck Farm (Puddleduck Farm #6)
People might not be able to afford high-end new kitchens but they could definitely still afford vet care for their animals, Phoebe was pleased to see. She’d always kept her prices as competitive as possible, and her New Forest practice was thriving.
She was glad she and Sam were doing a slow handover into their new regime with Lily, and she knew their plans were only possible because of their family’s help.
Louella and Jan were helping out as much as they could and Maggie and Eddie had begun to do regular babysitting, which meant that Phoebe got to see her grandmother a lot too.
And while Lily was obviously a massive draw, Phoebe knew that there was a little part of her grandmother that didn’t want to let go of her role at Puddleduck Pets either.
Maggie cared deeply about the animal rescue centre she’d started, and she was in her element keeping an eye on how it was running and being able to see the animals and hand out advice to prospective owners.
True to his word, Eddie had created some posters about the pitfalls of keeping wildlife as pets, and they were now on the walls of the practice alongside the posters promoting the spaying of domestic pets. They were also prominently displayed around the rescue centre.
He’d also made up some fact sheets about owls, foxes and African pygmy hedgehogs.
Marcus and Seth had done most of the research on the hedgehogs, and Phoebe had done her best to memorise as much as she could.
She now knew far more about the cute little hedgehogs than she’d ever dreamed she’d need to know.
Tori had promised to do a feature on the dangers of keeping wildlife which would include the little hedgehogs and which would go into the December issue of New Forest Views , which they’d decided would be good timing and hopefully would make people think before deciding to buy unsuitable pets as Christmas presents for their unwitting relatives.
Phoebe’s first full day back at work fell, rather appropriately, on World Animal Day, which was 4 October. It was a Friday, which she’d decided was a good day to catch up on what had happened during the week.
Although Sam was scheduled to look after Lily, he’d had to go over to Hendrie’s to help out because his father had an emergency dentist appointment. Fortunately, Maggie and Eddie had stepped into the breach and had come over to look after Lily.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind having Roxie as well?
’ Phoebe asked Maggie for what seemed like the hundredth time, as she got ready to walk round to work.
She was in bigger trousers than she’d been pre-pregnancy, she still had some baby weight to lose, but boy, was it good to be out of those feeding bras.
‘Of course I don’t mind. She’ll be company for Tiny and Buster.
’ Tiny, who was Maggie’s not very aptly named enormous Irish wolfhound, was currently lying by the Aga, and he pricked up his ears at the sound of his name.
Buster was her ancient black Labrador whose old age was being eked out by careful arthritis medication and the fact that he spent most of his time either asleep or being fed on Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference mince.
‘Thanks. And you had remembered the fencer is coming to make a start on our new dog field, hadn’t you?’ Maggie had heartily approved of that plan, as Phoebe had anticipated.
‘Of course I’d remembered. Eddie’s dealing with him. But I shall take a trip up there later and make sure that everything’s going to plan. I am still perfectly capable of basic childcare – and dog care.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘So stop fretting and get to work.’
‘Right. Fine. I will.’ Phoebe smiled despite herself. It felt great to have Maggie back here at Puddleduck. She contemplated telling her grandmother that she’d missed her being here a lot but decided the old lady would probably just accuse her of sentimentality if she did that.
‘Go on, shoo,’ Maggie urged, her eyes bright. ‘Someone needs to earn some money. All these hungry mouths to feed.’
When Phoebe got to her practice, it was to find a hive of activity.
There were three clients in the waiting room, two with cats and one with a cockerpoo who was wagging her tail so hard she kept bashing it against the shelf of treats and knocking off bags which her owner kept replacing.
Marcus was behind reception and Jenna was putting up a poster.
‘It’s a World Animal Day one that someone brought in,’ she informed Phoebe.
‘It complements the Voice for Wildlife posters that Eddie did, don’t you think? ’
Voice for Wildlife was the name they’d given their campaign to educate the general public about the dangers of keeping wildlife as pets.
Jenna was right, Phoebe saw. The World Animal Day poster, which featured a wolf standing in front of a map of the world on a green background, was very similar to Eddie’s posters, which were red and green.
‘Same colours,’ she remarked. ‘They look great.’
‘They had that celebrity wildlife guy, Malcolm something or other, talking about wolves on the radio today,’ said the cockerpoo owner. ‘They’re thinking of reintroducing them to parts of England and Scotland. What do you vets think?’
‘I suppose it depends where they introduce them and how controlled it is,’ Phoebe said. ‘I can’t see farmers being very happy about it.’
‘It’d be a nightmare,’ one of the cat owners piped up. ‘They’re predators, aren’t they? They’d decimate the local cat population. And they’d kill small dogs.’
‘I don’t think they’re letting any go in the New Forest,’ Marcus told her. ‘So we should be OK here.’
‘They’ve already done it with wild boar,’ said Mrs Cockerpoo. ‘One of my friends got gored by a wild boar in the New Forest. She had to wait eighteen hours in A&E and then she had thirteen stitches in her arm. Actually, it might have been the other way round, I’m not sure.’
Phoebe escaped to find Max, who was in the back consulting room, looking at a patient record.
‘Oh, hi, Phoebe. How’s it going? Good to see you’re back.’
‘Pleased to be back. Are all those clients waiting to see you?’
‘No, the cockerpoo’s Jenna’s but she’s early. In fact, so’s my patient. The owner thought it was a tooth problem on the phone. I was just checking to see when he last had a descale. I’m sure we did it when he was under anaesthetic for an ear problem not long ago.’
Back to normality, Phoebe thought happily. At least for a day, and it felt good. Here in her practice with its dust-free surfaces and shiny implements and the faint smell of sterile wipes she felt confident. She felt at home.
‘And the other cat?’ she asked.
‘He’s waiting for a prescription. I thought Jenna had done it.’
‘She’s putting up posters.’
‘Ah. Yes, that’s right, I said I’d do it. I got distracted.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Phoebe offered. ‘What does he need?’
Max told her and she disappeared into reception and sorted it out. While she was there, she saw Max usher the woman with the other cat into his consulting room.
Even though she didn’t do any real work that morning – she was more of a glorified prescription dispenser – by the time lunchtime came, Phoebe felt as though she was back into the swing of things.
Maybe this was what she’d needed all along.
To be in the familiar space of her practice again, feeling that she was a whole person again, and not just a mother.
A wave of guilt washed through her and she dismissed it. She did not need to feel guilty just because she wasn’t being a mother twenty-four seven. That was another thing she’d discussed with Tori, who’d felt the same apparently when she’d first had Vanessa-Rose.
What was it with this guilt thing? It seemed to underlie pretty much everything to do with mothering.
Maybe that was because she was a new mother – she’d noticed that second-time parents on Mumsnet, which was still her main source of information, were much more laid back.
She decided it was something else to put on her list to discuss with the health visitor.
It was a relief when Marcus distracted her by showing her something on the computer. ‘I keep meaning to ask you about Mission Owl Rescue,’ she said. ‘Did anything else happen about that?’
He grinned and tapped his nose. ‘It did but if I told you I’d have to kill you.’
‘What’s this?’ Jenna, who was just going out for lunch, paused. ‘Are you talking about the owl in the shed?’
‘I don’t know about any owl in any shed,’ Marcus declared with a perfectly straight face.
‘But if you should happen to be driving along the Salisbury road at dusk you may catch sight of an owl sitting on a gatepost.’ He widened his eyes and looked from one to the other.
‘It can quite often be seen hunting at dusk, so I think we could say that it’s been repatriated to the wild.
’ He looked at Phoebe. ‘Is that the right word – repatriated? Or do I mean resettled?’
‘I think resettled might be more what you mean,’ she said lightly. ‘That’s good news.’
They all smiled, and she felt warmed. There were still a lot of good people around who cared passionately for wildlife and were ready to go the extra mile for them. The vast majority of people were brilliant.
She was just about to go back to the house for lunch and to see how Maggie was getting on with Lily when the glass doors of the reception burst open and a man in jeans and an olive fleece jacket hurtled through them at speed.
Phoebe’s heart sank. Only people with emergencies ran into the practice, although he wasn’t carrying an animal. He was so out of breath that he couldn’t speak. But he was white faced, as if he’d just had a tremendous shock.
‘What is it?’ Phoebe asked gently, slipping into the calm persona of someone who’d had years of practice with panicking people. ‘Do you need our help? Is there an injured animal?’