Hello Tuesday Grans of The Kitchen
Those are simply beautiful Glads, NannyT and I'm sorry you're feeling rotten today, Blossoming. Hope you haven't been overdoing things? I know you're having a down day, Corner - I expect your body is having a hard time adjusting after what you've been through. Hopefully you'll be through the glooms very soon now and be back feeling positive and a lot fitter. Be a patient patient, please! Let that nice Butler take the strain. Just sending you a huge wish, Dogs that the infection is brought under control and your Mum will be kept safe. ?
Well, all of you came up trumps, as expected. Lots of harsh words about cat food manufacturers and lots of empathy with regard to my small and bizarre scare! You're all so kind.
A charming lady did 'phone today as promised, and we spoke in a mixture of French and English because her technical terms about the production process were alien to me, and she insisted she'd forget her English words - she didn't. It was explained to me how staff wear special clothes and their own clothes and personal effects are kept in lockers in a staff area. If they are taking any pills, these too have to be kept in the staff area and are not allowed on the 'factory' floor. But, in spite of that of course, investigations will be made. She was very disappointed, she said, about the telephone and contact response online, but she'd do all she could now to expedite things and let me know if there was likely to have been an 'incident' at the place where the food was produced. She could trace this from the batch numbers on the base of the tin and I agreed to send her the tin and the pills, for which she was sending me a printed pre=paid label. She said she was so grateful for my perseverance in contacting them because, naturally, customer feedback was at the heart of what they do. Without happy customers, they wouldn't do well with their dog and cat food sales!
I explained that I had no wish to claim for anything. Nobody died, fortunately. I just wanted them to know what happened.
We left it there, urgent investigations would be made.
Then things changed rapidly. I telephoned someone who occasionally looks after our cats if we are away. I wanted to make sure that she has some time free at the end of the month when we hope to go to Northern France for a couple of days.
I then told her my cat food story! Lots of silence.....and then she reminded me that when she was last here, about 3 weeks ago, I asked her to give two tablets to one of the cats who was finishing a course because of an upset stomach. She has cats, she's good at cat wrangling and agreed to put the two pills down Paxo's throat. Unfortunately she omitted to tell me when we returned that on one occasion, Paxo refused to co-operate (and you only get one 'go' normally!). So, she put the rather mangled one pill and one which she hadn't tried yet, onto a dish to try the following day. Instead, she used two fresh pills. And she had left the other pills in a small dish. The dishes live in a stack in a cupboard and I had put the dishes away when I returned!!!!!
Yes, you guessed it. Saturday evening I was looking for a clean dish and for the first time I used the dish which not only had been put away in the 'animal' cupboard but which still contained the offending pills! ? I could never have known about those pills being 'on the loose' had I not spoken to her today.
I couldn't be nasty, but I so wish I'd known. I wouldn't be looking or expecting anything to be left in a pile of clean dishes, so obviously just didn't see the pills. They were very small. I felt that I needed to urgently notify Nestlé and this poor customer service lady before she set in train a series of events which would be unfair, and lots of extra work for her.
So I mailed her and explained and said how terribly, terribly sorry I am. But there was no way I could have known why this happened and it was only luck that I found out today!
Fortunately we had already had a very nice conversation with no threats or finger-pointing and she had been very agreeable and confirmed that she would be getting to the bottom of what happened if it was at all possible, so I didn't think she would respond badly. She didn't. She said she was so pleased that I had solved my own mystery and now I hopefully didn't have to worry about the safety or the quality of their product.
I think all ended well. I was not at all concerned about appearing very foolish - but I do rather wish it hadn't happened.
So I went out for a nice calming walk in beautiful sunshine and will take the view that such things do happen......well, they do to me..... Tomorrow is another day - a better one, hopefully.
I have a nice haircut, the diet's going well, the weather's lovely and I'm looking forward to tea and a catch up at a friend's house tomorrow.
Hoping for anyone unwell or worried - may tomorrow be better. Wishing you all a good night, sweet dreams and, unlike me, maybe keep out of mischief, everyone?
Stay safe. With love and hugs from France. ??♀️
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