Cats Concussions & Colourful Gluggles

It’s Jeanne again and before I talk about some new lines, and if you read my email last week, then you have probably remembered that I’d tell you how I got seven stitches in the head on my last night in Sri Lanka. I seem to be a bit of a walking disaster at the moment, as on Monday I also pulled my back! I know! What am I doing to myself? Broken head and now broken back! Ok, big exaggeration but I’m sure you get my point. With the pulled back, I have been out of commission for a couple of days, so I’m playing catch up and sadly have even less time to write the newsletter, so it won’t be a long one... I think.

Right, story telling time. On my last night in Sri Lanka, I went to a restaurant with three friends (Megan and Adam I’ve known two years and Siofra we met on our tour in Sri Lanka). Shortly after being seated, I heard a cat meowing and pretty quickly found there was a black kitten asking around for food. My heart broke and melted for it and I was determined to give it some food. We got our meals and I ordered a Sri Lankan dish called Kottu. Absolutely lush and there were prawns in it. I couldn’t finish my plate and luckily the restaurant were quite generous with the number of prawns they added. I managed to grab the attention of the kitten but then I found out that there were two of them! So, I fed them both all the prawns that I had. A tip to know is, if a stray dog or cat has a bit of it’s ear missing, then they have been vaccinated from rabies and are therefore very safe to pet. These kittens weren’t missing anything, so I didn’t know if they were fine or not. After feeding the kittens one ran away and one stayed, and being a cat woman, I found it really hard to not pet it. So, I gave in and gave it some love but kept my eyes on him like a hawk. I was doing well keeping an eye on it and then I turned away from it for one second and that is when the kitten decided it wanted to play with me and scratched my hand. I swore quite a lot, in my head, at this point. I checked the scratch and it was just a surface level scratch, no bleeding, so I was telling myself it’s all going to be ok, just get yourself to a hospital and it will all be fine.

I went to the loos to wash my hands and despite trying my best to keep calm, I could feel my heart rate going up and up. The next thing I realise is, I feel like I’m in a dream and I thought I was in bed and back home. Low and behold when I started waking up from this 'dream' I realised I wasn’t in bed and not at home. I remembered I was in Sri Lanka, and I was lying weirdly on the floor. I remember standing up, looking in the mirror, looking a bit shocked and then blood gushing down my face. As you could imagine, I was swearing a lot again. I got some toilet paper and wiped the blood off my face and prayed it would kind of stop bleeding so I could go back into the restaurant and not look like I came out of a horror film and scare about 100 people. After cleaning myself up I find that I feel like I'm in a dream again.. yep, I passed out a second time!
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The second time I woke up my head was in a lot of pain. I didn’t know how long I was out for, so I stood up, got my adrenaline kicking and told my body that it could not pass out anymore. I cleaned the blood off the floor and my face, kept it up high and slowly walked back to my friends. I got back, sat down and said “Guys, something has happened… I passed out and cut my head really badly”. I was pointing to the visible blood in my hair to show I wasn’t exaggerating. Megan took charge of the situation very calmy and with certainty. She got the bill, she asked Adam to look up medical centres or hospitals and Siofra, well there wasn’t anything else for her to do apart from holding me upright as we walked to our tuk tuk.

We first went to a medical centre that was free and the word free definitely was a big incentive to try out first. They couldn’t help me and said we had to go to the hospital up the road. As we were waiting for another tuk tuk, I felt like throwing up (luckily I didn’t), was very lightheaded, was told that I looked grey and my hearing went! I thought oops.. this could be 'not good' or it’s just part of the process of the shock I’ve been through. It felt like I was under water so I just let it happen and waited to see if my hearing would come back. Luckily it did, so I was relieved. We got to the hospital quite quickly and there were some nurses outside the building to triage those visiting. I told them I cut my head and straight away they got a wheelchair and wheeled me inside and I was the next person to see a doctor. My cut got checked out and stitched up and I was surprised that I needed seven stitches as the doctor measure a 5cm laceration.

Back in England a nurse said it was more like 6cm, but anyway it was still seven stitches. For some reason I couldn’t get the rabies jab as it was nighttime. No, I didn’t ask why as I was more concerned about my head. But the doctor said I could get that later. He wanted to keep me for observation for 24hrs, but my flight was in 12. Luckily, he didn’t force me and didn’t seem too worried about me getting on a plane. After some tips and advice to look out for and £19 later for the stitches and £4.90 for 3 different drugs and an antibiotic cream (I know! Even I was surprised) I was sent on my merry way back to the hotel where I rang dad straight away. The conversation started with "hello" to each other and Dad saying, “are you phoning because you want to talk or because something has happened?” I paused and then said “I am fine right now but I had an accident”. You’d think he would have lost it but no, he was very calm and was peacefully listening to the story. 

In the morning I was off, ready to go back home. I was very lucky that Siofra happened to get the same flight as me so I wouldn’t be on my own. The second I was back in England, I asked dad to take me to A&E at East Surrey Hospital to check my head and see if they thought I needed the rabies jab. Originally the nurse said no but after some discussions with other people they decided to play it safe. And there it is, a mix of stress from a potentially dangerous scratch, sub-tropical heat and a little alcohol had caused me to faint.... twice. And that is how I got seven stitches in my head. I'm still recovering slowly from the effects of the concussion, and what have I learnt from this latest adventure? Essentially to not stroke stray cats but will this really stop me next time? it might, it might not, we shall see!

To Product

Ok, onto products now. We have been selling the famous, what I like to call 'gluggle gluggle jugs', for a year or so, after being told by our supplier that we were really missing out. I remember people asking for them back in the day and I thought why? What’s so great about them. Anyway, we decided to put our trust in our supplier and give them a go. When they arrived, I thought “Ok. It’s just a fish jug. Apparently, people like them”. I put water in a jug to test the famous gluggle gluggle noise not expecting much but wow was I mistaken. The gluggle noise was quite loud and impressive coming for a piece of stoneware and really satisfying to rock from side to side to create the noise. That’s when I understood the appeal to them. We went for some safe colours about a year or so ago and now we have decided to go for a wider range of more vibrant colours.

We stock two sizes (1.2L and 0.6L) and have both sizes in the six new colours as well as the existing six.

We also plan to get mini versions of these, and wow are they just so cute and adorable. I know, it’s typically a women thing to find small things cute but wait until you see (and hear) them in the flesh. You might agree with me, and you might not and that is absolutely fine. We are human and thankfully that means us all being different.

The Offer
For this week we'll give you 20% off when you buy 2 or more.  Use code 7STITCHES when shopping online or let us know who you are if coming into the shops.

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Last Word

This weekend I will be working and then going out for a meal with the family as it’s the death anniversary of mum today. Five years it’s been now and I still get moments when I think it's just part of life to lose a parent and there are others who have lost a parent or both much younger than I did, so I try to consider myself lucky. But the other part of me thinks it still doesn’t lessen the pain of losing her. Raw stuff but the reality of many, I am sure. Anyway, I apologise if I’ve ended on a bit of a mixed note.  If you don’t know us yet, then this is part of being a Bluett-Duncan. And if you know us, then I know you wouldn’t expect anything less.  

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I trust you will have a lovely weekend. 
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Adios