A date with Sarah-Kate; Kate’s home truths

A case of pancreatitis leaves Sarah-Kate gagging

With not a great amount of notice, it became apparent that we could not remain living in our house while our renovations were continuing. I like ventilation as much as the next person, but once the rain and fog start coming inside the room, you really do need to up sticks.

Luckily, I have two very hospitable sisters who opened their doors to me, the Ginger and our dog Ted. Unluckily, Ted chose this exact moment in our somewhat complicated life to go on a hunger strike. He’d already been turning his nose up at a few of my homecooked delicacies, but he’s not the first species to do that. I thought it was his protest at the builders whose use of nail guns he takes very personally.

But once we moved out of home, his appetite became even smaller. Then I thought it had something to do with his dog cousin Harvey, who’s never met a morsel he can’t scoff in a nanosecond. Usually, Ted buys into a bit of competitive eating and fattens up quite nicely when he stays with Harvey, but on this occasion, he just wasn’t interested.

Worried that too much disruption was killing his buzz, we booked him into his favourite kennel. Unlike other dogs who refuse to get out of the car when they’re sent to boarding school, Ted starts squeaking with excitement when we turn down the driveway and can’t get away from us quickly enough. So it was on this occasion. But after a couple of days, we got the call. He’d stopped eating again.

One trip to the vet later and it turns out the poor little mite had pancreatitis, which means a really sore tummy. My freshly-poached chicken was making him want to hurl. Unfortunately, one of the hurls happened on my sister’s carpet. More unfortunately, it happened again on the others sister’s carpet. Worse than that, I only have two sisters.

Oh, and I had been poaching his chicken in a turmeric bone broth – turmeric being a health-promoting spice so bright yellow in colour that it’s used as a dye. Good if you want to brighten up a T-shirt, but not so good if it’s pooling on a woollen floor covering in a house other than your own.

Stresses never come in ones or twos and having them in threes can just about give a person pancreatitis too. Which is why it was so lovely when I caught up for lunch (well, I can still eat!) with a friend and the maître d’ hovered into view with a bottle of champagne.

“Oh, that’s not for us,” I was quick to say before he popped the cork.

“But it is,” came the reply. Turns out my pal had been talking to a mutual friend of ours in London that morning who had then called the restaurant and ordered us the bubbly.

Duty and driving soon called, so the kitchen inherited half of it, but what a lovely thing it was to have a random act of kindness turn up in the middle of a most traumatic time. Those things usually happen to the person at the next table!