Ever get the feeling you're being tested?

Do you ever get the feeling you're being tested, that bad things are happening to you for a reason? Things are going along nicely, you're kind of enjoying life, and then suddenly things start going haywire. Well, yesterday I certainly got that feeling.

The morning didn't start off too badly. I had one of those annoying jobs to finish off, the ones that make you question whether you're really suited to your chosen occupation. But I got it done. Nevertheless, I wasn't in the greatest frame of mind just before noon when it came time to take one of our cats, Gollum, down to the vet to have a checkup on a wound on his face, the result of a cat fight a couple of weeks ago.

Gollum usually sleeps on our bed during the day, except at lunchtime when he invariably shows up in the kitchen. Yesterday, however, he was nowhere to be found. We called and called, looked in all the cupboards, looked around the garden, even looked out on the road in case he'd been run over, but there was no sign of him. So I called the vet and rescheduled the appointment for nine this morning. This was annoying. However, Gollum's a very resourceful cat, so we weren't particularly worried.

We did start to worry later, though, when he didn't turn up at dinner time. We were due over at my father's for a meal, so we fed our other cat, Oscar, who callously acted as though nothing was out of the ordinary, and headed out.

We had organized to pick up some pizza on the way. I'd felt a bit of a twinge in my groin earlier in the day (this occasionally happens when I stand up after sitting down for long periods, plus it was a bitterly cold day, which can't have helped), and as I was getting out of the car at the pizza place I felt a stab of pain in my hip. I managed to straighten up and went in and picked up the pizzas OK, but when we got to my father's and I tried to get out of the car again the pain was almost unbearable. It did improve as time went on. However, my physical discomfort and the anguish over Gollum's disappearance combined to put a real dampener on the evening.

When we got home just after eight there was still no sign of Gollum. He has skipped the odd meal before, but we couldn't remember him going missing for this long, and knowing that he wasn't 100% fit, we were beginning to think the worst.

Neither of us could get much sleep that night. To make matters worse, my groin became sorer and sorer as the night wore on. At around three in the morning I got up to look for some Panadol. I decided to peek into the lounge, which is where the cats usually sleep, and to my delight I spotted two black and white bundles of fur curled up on the sofa. I can't describe how happy and relieved I was. I picked Gollum up and gave him the biggest cuddle of his life before carrying him into the bedroom to show Keiko. We then gave him a well-deserved meal.

My groin wasn't much better first thing this morning (getting out of bed was a real challenge, and I don't mean because it was the coldest morning of the year so far), but by nine it was on the improve, and we managed to get Gollum down to the vet for a jab of antibiotics. He was a bit shaken, but he seems fine now. I'm a lot better too. I'm quite mobile and more-or-less pain free. But ask me to put a 15kg pack on my back and trek 530km and I'd think twice. Can I really walk the Nakasendo?

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since blog began: 107km