Worrying news on our return

After Mondays storms you couldn't have asked for better sailing conditions across the Irish Sea. It was like a mill pond, hardly any swell at all. Three and a half hours after leaving Douglas we docked at Heysham and three hours after that we were back in Sandiacre to collect the car.

Leaving the hotel in Douglas at 7.45am

By 9.15am the ferry left port

I've marked where the hotel was.

 Douglas lighthouse

Stormy clouds on the horizon

Looks like the start of two small tornados

Look at the sea under the cloud spout. Looks to be a water jet.

Cormorants to greet our arrival in Heysham

Turning so the stern backs onto the ramp

First stop from Sandiacre was to Midland Chandlers to collect our new stainless steel chimney ordered on Freaky Friday. It was a mad dash to Willington, time was now getting on and I had a feeling they shut at 5pm. Got there with time to spare and then off to Swadlincote to fetch Jade. Now this is where it got a bit distressing. When I had phoned Christine to say we were on our way I thought she sounded a bit down. As soon as we arrived and had cuddled grandson Josh and baby Thomas, Christine asked if we could sit down. Jade by now had come over and was all over us like a rash but I knew we had some bad news to come. Turns out Jade had a routine blood test and ECG at the vets in Swadlincote and the results were not good. She has a condition called Premature Ventricular complexs. All the symptoms were there. The fainting fits, coughing, funny breathing and maybe that was the reason why she didn't want to go for a walk. Not all the results are in yet and the vet is hoping to rule out primary heart disease, heart cancer, heart enlargement and inflammation. The outlook doesn't bode well with the worse thing to happen, sudden death. She may well be able to go onto heart tablets but until all the tests are in we have been told to treat her as normal. Then on top of that it was confirmed that she is almost blind. In daylight she can just about see but night vision is now non excistant. We had assumed something was amiss when she didnt like to jump back onto the boat in the dark. Her doggie board will always be used now and I'm going to paint it white to help her to see where she needs to go. Both of us have agreed that if the worse comes to the worse and the outlook is not good then the kindest thing would be to put her to sleep. All we can do is keep fingers crossed and just wait it out.