Thank goodness for Facebook friends!

I couldn't get the view from my loo window today but even taking one from outside doesn't catch the full glory of the surroundings. The north part of the South Oxford has the best scenery of our trip so far. The canal is also quite isolated here, a fact that suddenly became very real this morning.

Bonny woke me just before 5am to tell me she was feeling very rough. She obviously wanted to sleep but seemed to find it painful to put her head down. She was shivering despite being warm and she was very flat. Bonny has hardly had a days illness in her 7 years so I really wasn't prepared for this.

By 7am I was really very worried. She had managed to wee but showed no interest in anything which is unheard of at walk time. I checked the map and found the nearest road of any description was an hours cruise away and the nearest village even further. How on earth would I get her to a vet if she needed one?

Well, for those people who rather looks down their nose at anyone who uses Facebook, can I say that without my many online friends, I would have descended into panic. Thanks to their questions and suggestions I worked out the most likely cause of Bonny's sickness was heatstroke. Thanks to a cooling breeze yesterday it didn't really register with me how hot the sun was. Bonny had been outside hunting mice and riding on my roof for most of the day.

I then found out how to treat it effectively and by the afternoon, she was recovering nicely. Another Facebook friend was on standby to drive to a nearby farm, pick us up and take us to a local vet. I ended up cruising just for an hour to be closer to a village, just in case. Here she is recuperating. She has been inside almost all day but she needed some fresh air so I put her in the shade for a bit.

So thank you to my real, virtual friends. I am very grateful for your support and sympathy and wisdom. Fortunately I still have a spare day before making the last bit of the trip to meet my friends, so we will have a quiet recovery day tomorrow in this beautiful, peaceful place.