Occasional Scribbles

Cat has appeared from her night’s prowling…with a scratched up face! Pauvre petitie!  She has not uttered a word to me.  Not one single word.  This is so unlike her usual cheerful chirruping.  I am wondering if she has lost her voice with the fear of the attack.  She is a very timid cat as I have described here.

About a year or so ago, I was woken in the night by a dreadful sound outside.  I couldn’t make out what it was but it alarmed me so much, I ran downstairs to see what it was.  By the time I got downstairs there was silence and I could see nothing outside in the blackness.  Twiggy (the dog we had then) ran outside, also troubled by the shrieking noise and went off to investigate.  I had not turned on the house lights so as to see better outside but finding nothing out there, I switched them on.  I vaguely wondered if the noise was cats but it didn’t really sound like them but I thought I’d check on Cat.  I opened her shed door where she usually slept on top of the boiler but she wasn’t there.  I went back inside the house and looked around.

Cat

I called to her and heard the most awful sound.  She didn’t answer like she usually did all cheerful and happily.  Instead there was a strangled noise coming from the sitting room.  I went in and looked around but didn’t see her.  I looked some more and finally found her hiding behind the door.  She was in a wretched state.  She was clearly terrified and unwilling to move away from the safety of her position.  I coaxed her out eventually and picked her up.  Her little body was taut, as if ready to leap away.  Her heart was beating fast and her claws were digging into my shoulder.  She was soaking wet and she had a nasty cut on her ear and nose.

I daren’t put her down as she was so afraid so I sat with her for hours with the lights off as she seemed happier without the lights on.  An age later, I transferred her to the cushion next to me where she at once jumped down and hid behind the sofa.  I went to see if I could see any sign of her attacker and I when I saw nothing and returned to the sitting room, she was behind the long curtains peering out of the glass door into the garden.  She then slowly and creepingly moved across the kitchen, keeping herself hidden by the table and close to the wal,l into the study.  She stayed there the rest of the night; the safest place and where she could keep an eye on the cat flap in the kitchen.  She was clearly terrified that the evil monster would follow her into her own home and I couldn’t decide whether to shut it or leave it open incase she wanted to go out later on.  I left it open and she sat, large luminous, green eyes, fixed on the opening.

She is sitting now on the kitchen table on top of one of my jumpers.  She managed a small little ‘eek’ as I checked on her and she doesn’t seem too bad and nothing like the state she was in that awful night.  She is a proper farm cat, nothing special but she has always been very nervous and never strays far from home.  She got lost one time when she was about three, (she’s eight now) and I was so worried about her.  I would go out calling and calling and she was missing for five days.  My bossy neighbour told me that it was quite usual for cats to disappear off for days but I knew she was lost and knew absolutely that she would never leave home for any length of time.  I worried that she might have fallen asleep in a farm lorry and been tranported somewhere far away.  I worried she had been injured and was lying somewhere unable to get home.  I worried she’d been shot by mistake by the wretched shooters who shoot everything around here.  I was beside myself.  She hunts mice and voles but doesn’t eat them but I feared she may have eaten some out of hunger and been poisoned.  It was an awful few days.  Then one day she just appeared.  She looked ok and so I concluded that she had strayed too far and simply got lost. I like to think my constant calling and driving around the lanes searching helped her find her way back.  She’s never done it again.  Out of all my animals I am unexpectedly most attached to her; something I never thought I would be, as I consider myself a dog person rather than a cat person.  I will spoil her all day today.