Animal Woman

If you saw a woman walking around town with a cat on her shoulder would you think, a. nutter, b. eccentric or c. there’s a woman who’s obviously just found her cat and is keeping hold of it so it can’t run off again? Well in my case it was c with possibly a small smidgen of a thrown in as well. Another wandering cat story involving a different wandering cat. If you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin.
It was a cold and windy Saturday evening but we decided to walk into town anyway and go for a meal at Englezos  (our first meal out of the year and probably the first of the winter as well). Normally some of the cats will follow us up the steps and then just hang around the top before heading back down to the house. Not this time though. They all seemed to think it would be a brilliant idea to follow us through town and perhaps join us for our evening repast. I didn’t share this enthusiasm, especially as one of the followers was Susie, our 16 year old English cat. Reluctantly we retraced our steps back home and got in the car to drive to town thus hopefully deterring our little crowd of devotees.
On returning later that evening the usual suspects were present but with one glaring omission. Susie. Now, she has been known to sulk for a day or two and only return home when she thinks we have suffered enough, but with this being a new home and her not knowing the surroundings very well, I was quite worried. The next day when she didn’t turn up for breakfast I became even more worried and so spent the day wandering around calling her name and getting increasingly concerned for her safety.
Waking up on Monday morning, I went out to shout for the tabby but there was still no sign. I had to take junior to school, so resolved to spend the rest of the day after that searching for the missing moggy. Half way to junior’s school is an area where people put their rubbish bags for collection every day and you can usually find a cat or two nosing through the waste. Unbelievably enough as we approached the bags a cat darted out from underneath a car and ran towards the rubbish. You guessed it – it was Susie. The chances of us passing at the same time as her going to rummage through the bags must be pretty slim (although Sean says she was probably waiting until she saw us – he thinks she’s a bit sly!). I hoisted her onto my shoulder (it’s how she likes to travel) and took her to school with junior and then carried her back home, getting a few strange looks along the way I might add. She is now under temporary house arrest which she seems to be rather enjoying.
Bonnie, our little stray dog, appears to be getting bigger by the day. Unfortunately she appears to be in the family way and as a cat person with no experience of dogs at all, I am beginning to get rather concerned at the prospect of a litter of puppies arriving. Sean has been putting the word around so that we will hopefully be able to find homes for them but as we don’t know how many there will be…….. Oh well, we’ll just have to manage. How, I don’t know, but we will.