ON the high street, fairground rides and caravans have started to arrive and on the show field, marquees and sheep pens have begun to appear, which means only one thing; summer is almost over and Stokesley Show is almost here.

My granddaughters look forward to this week throughout the year and once again they will be exhibiting models in the craft tent, a guinea pig, and of course their beloved ponies.

I too was looking forward to taking my own coloured mare Diamond this year, as she has been going particularly well of late.

Rugged up for several weeks to keep her coat right, she’s had her beard and whiskers shaved off in readiness, but unfortunately this was not to be her year.

I suppose the trouble with horses, in fact with all animals really, is that no matter how well you look after them sometimes the unexpected just happens. On this occasion it happened last Sunday. I was out enjoying lunch with my son and daughter-in-law when I received a phone call to say that Diamond had gashed her leg and, as tends to be the case with this little mare, she never does anything by halves.

On the plus side, the injury had missed both her fetlock joint and tendon sheath, but with a wound roughly four inches long and too wide to stitch, there will be no show for us this year.

Poor Diamond, she is the most accident prone pony that I have ever owned. At just four years old a random kick resulted in a fractured splint bone which had to be surgically removed.

On her fifth birthday, she caught two bottom teeth in the bolt on her stable door, resulting in a fractured mandibular palette. Two teeth, still attached to a piece of jaw, were lost on this occasion.

Actually, I still have them in a jar on my bedside table.

A little earlier this year she also managed to lose part of her bottom lip, out in the field and once again this happened on a weekend, out of normal working hours, so as you can imagine we are fairly well known to our vets.

Diamond’s exploits, however, pale into insignificance compared to those of a little tortoiseshell cat in York.

Bad enough to get a call to say that your pride and joy has had an accident, but to get a message from a friend saying that a cat, looking very much like yours, has been taken to the RSPCA following a dog attack, must be one of your worst nightmares.

It transpired that the cat had subsequently been transferred to a veterinary practice in York, used by the RSPCA, and further telephone calls confirmed that the little cat was now comfortable but requiring surgery to remove an eye and to wire her fractured jaw.

The cost accrued so far was £150, with the operation estimated to be a further £700. To make matters worse, the vet was not prepared to carry out the surgery unless the additional £700 was paid in full, prior to the operation.

Now I don’t know many folk who could raise £700 at a moment’s notice and this young lady was no exception. A request to pay the bill in instalments was refused, as the surgery pointed out, they were a business and not a charity.

Fortunately, in this case, the cat’s owner was in receipt of housing benefit and therefore qualified for help from the PDSA and, ultimately, this is what saved her cat’s life.

It did involve finding transport to take the injured animal across York to a veterinary practice that worked in partnership with the PDSA, but here the operation was performed successfully, without further delay, in return for a voluntary donation.

The family involved would like it to be known that the treatment delivered to both patient and owner at this dreadful time was exceptional by any standard and they would would like to thank both S T Stead, the veterinary clinic where the lifesaving surgery was performed, and also the PDSA, for making it possible.