RETURN TO VICTORIA - IN MEMORY OF OUR BEST MATE

Our Return to Victoria we took 8 days which wasn't too bad on the body. Pete had a drive for a couple of hours and Dianne had a drive for 2 minutes (that's all I would allow). We headed to Alexandra where our friends Ken and Barb allowed us to park the bus at the rear of their house which helped us out beautifully because it's not easy to stash a 40ft bus with safety. We cleaned the bus out, got a few things together threw the dogs in the car and headed for Jaylene's house in Croydon. The day was really hot about 40 deg so we did some quick shopping and laid up in the house while Jaylene was at work.

Something was about to happen which would floor everyone and I think the reason why our Blog ran dry for so long. Jaylene came home about 9pm and got a rousing reception from the 3 dogs which hadn't seen her for about 10 months. She had just finished playing with Matey, all excited he was, as he walked away he staggered and collapsed on the floor. We went straight into action rushing him to the Vet where Jaylene's friend worked.

Their first diagnosis was that he was probably dehydrated from the long hot day and he was a bugger for not drinking enough, so we thought this could be feasible. They pumped him full of fluids but he wasn't too good. They did some blood tests to check if he had eaten any mice or snail bait as we weren't sure what was in Jaylene's new garden. Nothing showed up and they decided to keep him in overnight where the vet on call actually stayed with him.

The next morning the vet rang and unfortunately we were given bad news that he had a Tumour which had ruptured near his Liver which he couldn't survive from so the agonising decision was made there and then to put him to sleep. It was the worst day in our lives - as Pete said "Surely it can't get any harder than this". We took Matey back to our old property in Alexandra, where he was born, and buried him by the creek where he used to love playing.

Matey

13/1/2002 - 17/12/2009

He will always hold a place in our hearts

It just won't be the same without him