Dear Cat,
I don't have the nerves for this. But I'm onto you now.
We don't have a cat flap yet, so Lyra's usual routine goes like this. Sleep all day, hang out with us in the afternoon, get fed in the evening, go out for the night. In the early morning she'll jump in our bedroom window, get let into the rest of the house, take a nap, and wake us up to get breakfast if we're not up by five minutes past the usual time. She will occasionally miss coming back for breakfast, but we will then be met after work by an indignant cat pawing at the garden door wondering why the h*** she's hungry and outside.
So when she hadn't turned up by breakfast time yesterday I wasn't too worried. It was a cold and wet day so we figured she was napping somewhere dry. But when she still hadn't turned up by the afternoon, and dh had been home all day without seeing her we started getting worried. We started calling and searching for her, going much further than I have ever seen her go, somewhat hampered by the fact that we live next door to a large absolutely no-entry army camp. The completely overgrown swathe of land just outside our garden and just inside their fence is her favourite hunting ground. The guard at the gate was polite and amused when a distraught woman with straggly hair turned up in the evening looking for her cat but was not about to let me inside.
I was mostly worried about a fox getting her. We live right up against the woods, hardly any traffic, but she's territorial and would quite probably try to defend her space against a fox, or even a badger. And she has come home wide-eyed and very jumpy before, as though she'd been in a showdown with some animal.
By nightfall I was a total mess, and dreading having to tell my son that Lyra was gone. Left a window open and slept fitfully, starting at the smallest noise in the house. After getting up to check the first two sounds and finding nothing I decided not to get up any more as it was just too disappointing. Besides, I expected that if she did come in it would be with loud demands for food and company.
Got up this morning with a very heavy heart, hoping against hope that she would meet me in the hall as usual, but no.
But a few minutes later a calm and nonchalant cat comes wandering down the hall from my son's bedroom where she has been quietly sleeping as if nothing had happened and the past day never existed.
Why do they DO this to us??
Winter riding is much less about badassery and much more about bundle-uppery. - malkin
1995 Kona Cinder Cone commuterFrankenbike/Selle Italia SLR Lady Gel Flow
2008 white Nakamura Summit Custom mtb/Terry Falcon X
2000 Schwinn Fastback Comp road bike/Specialized Jett