The cat came back! And other news
First, the most important news! Our little grey cat Fankil went missing back in April. Now we have him back!
Two weeks ago, I saw on a lost pet group on Facebook a post about a grey cat that had been haunting the workshop of a holiday complex about ten miles away. He had been caught and brought to the local animal rescue, which had pronounced him un-microchipped and feral. Fankil was microchipped, and not at all feral but microchips do fail, and he had been missing for many months, so we arranged to go and see the found cat anyway.
When we got there, the cat was in a pen with an enclosed kennel bit, jammed behind the bed. He peed himself in terror when the door opened and growled savagely at us. We thought surely this isn't our cat. His ears looked wrong, his eyes were a bit too yellow and we couldn't see the white hairs on his chest, and his feet were not plain purple but dotted with pink. He was the right size, colour and sex, but ten miles is a long walk for a cat.
But we went and sat with him for a bit, and he really warmed up to Pp - way more than he had to the rescue volunteer who had trapped him, or the guy who found him in the workshop and had been feeding him for weeks. It was hard to tell, but it really seemed like this cat knew Pp. And the rescue was very clear that with his behaviour, nobody else was likely to take this terrified stinky skinny cat home.
So we agreed to take him home for a few days. Worst case scenario: free cat!
But I really wasn't sure he was our cat, until Theo wandered up, sniffed and totally ignored him. Theo is pretty excitable around strange cats, and it was clear that he didn't consider this cat to fall into that group.
Since then, the cat has eaten a number of huge meals, has purred hugely, has come over for strokes and cuddles, and in fact has absolutely not behaved in any way like a scared feral cat, or even a cat in a new home. He behaves like a cat that IS home, and even his ears have changed shape now he's not trying to pretend he's invisible. And he DOES have a few white hairs on his chest. We just couldn't see them properly in the poor light. I haven't yet tried properly checking his feet, but I suspect the pink speckles might be scar tissue from the long walk.
We have him back!
One happy cat purring like a motor.
What else happened? Oh yes, Christmas. We went down to stay with my mother for a few days. She had a cold (had tested negative for Covid a couple times before we went down and the cold was improving) so decided to mask up to contain the sniffles.
I got Pp a roman-style gladius as a present (I suspect the beautiful damascus steel leaf-shaped blade is not very authentic but it is very pretty). He was pleased, and importantly, nobody has yet been slain.
Those socks are on the radiator because we took the hounds out over Dartmoor on Christmas morning and it absolutely POURED on us and we became very very wet . It then continued to pour all day. Possibly wettest Christmas in years?
This is a postcard that my Mum received recently, originally posted in London, which found its way to an ex-neighbour in Swansea. We moved away from Swansea when I was 13 - and the postcard wasn't even sent to Swansea. It was sent to my father at an address in Birkenhead, where they lived, I think, before they moved to Leicester, which is where they lived before Swansea.
It's post-marked 1966! I am torn between being amazed that it finally reached my Mum at all, and being amazed that it took so long to get there. Who 'Jackie' was has been lost in the mists of time.
Back to Pembrokeshire, and the hounds and the Christmas tree. I am thinking I may not make a Christmas decoration this year. I can't remember what I did with last year's tree, or whether I kept a bit to carve. I might have to start over with a chunk of this tree next year.
Random photo of a lurcher posing on the beach after we got back.
Oh!I forgot to say that on the way driving home from Devon on Boxing day, the exhaust fell off the Volvo. Or, at least, it sort of fell off and was bouncing on the road as we drove, and we looked at a large Volvo stuffed with Stuff and Dogs, and concluded that our chances of getting all that rescued on Boxing Day were slim, so we turned off the motorway and found a very pot-holey lane and drove on that, feeling rather like we were in an episode of Top Gear in till the exhaust actually fell off and could be wrapped in dog towels and shoved inside the car.)
After that the drive home was Very Loud, but at least it wasn't likely to slay a following driver on the motorway, which would have been an unfestive thing to do on a Boxing Day.
On that Volvo the sunroof doesn't work, the driver's side window doesn't work, the drivers door is a different colour to the car, the passenger side has a big bash in it, the back bumper is semi-detached from the exhaust pothole operation, and the aircon needs regassing. And we bought it as an emergency replacement for 1500 quid about five years ago, hoping it would last a year. So I feel the moment has probably come to replace it. I just can't decide yet with what.