No good deed goes unpunished!

I love that phrase, I don't believe in it, but it makes me laugh.  What I planned today was a bit of a re-write - and I started early, before breakfast - but then things slowed down, which is not a bad thing.  Often when I am at my most impatient I am also at my most confused.   So I had an interesting and leisurely chat with Susan our Air BnB visitor - and then offered to take her to the station. It is a beautiful sunny morning, the snowdrops, hellebores, primroses and iris unguicularis are all looking great - and the clematis armandii is beginning to flower already.   So I was full of the joys of spring and stopped to pat one of the anti-Bernards (identical black cats who live in the street) - this particular one is usually very friendly, and was rolling around on our front window sill and enjoying itself, I thought, when it suddenly turned its head and without warning sunk its fangs into my thumb.  It was agony, I could have sworn I heard a crunch... I went into shock - but got in, and with M's help cleaned and bandaged the thumb, which is now, about 45 minutes later, throbbing and painful.  I feel slightly nauseous, the area is red and warm and there is a pain in the base of my hand/wrist - probably the deep-seated infection that will give me encardiitis spreading! (Hypochondriac - moi?  No, just the result of reading the NHS website to tell me what to do). I am waiting for my GP to call me back with advice on antibiotics - tetanus etc.  The pain is probably because I am typing awkwardly because of the bandage.

What annoys me is that I was being nice to the cat - a cat which has previously allowed me to pick it up quite happily...I have had cats all my life, and never, ever have I had a bite like this.  It was just vicious, uncalled for.  Perhaps I accidentally touched a sensitive spot, I don't know.  It is quite shocking - I now feel astonishingly vindictive and feel like throwing tiny stones at the cat in future and driving it off our property.  As M said, "imagine if it did that to a child!", but what can you do?  If a dog had bitten me like that it might be in danger of being put down as vicious - but a cat's a different matter.