Ou est Polly?
When we woke up this morning, Polly was there, ready for her first pouch of meaties of the day. She scoffed, face first, decorum second; we went into the caravan for breakfast, and then she disappeared.
Polly never disappears. She is the most irritating of ankle-bound cats, who never wanders further than ten metres from the homestead.
We carefully retraced our listenings. I had heard a little miaow by the caravan window just ten minutes ago. We searched for two hours. We called her name, we called. 'meaties' in the special voice, which is normally a fail-safe 'return to base' mechanism, but no response. Nothing. Not a miaow, not a purr, not a plaintive wail. We searched all of the barns and buildings; we paced the perimeter of the farm; we trod the local roads and footpaths. Nothing.
We decided that, at fifteen years of age, Polly had decided to slope off somewhere to die peacefully. But why couldn't we find her? Maybe a local beast had whisked her away in its jaws? No, she'd have made a fuss about that... We'd have heard.
We felt an inevitable deep sadness dawning...
On a final optimistic 'she won't be far' patrol of the cottage, I suddenly spotted the little minx!
She had purposefully ignored our calls, as she rightly suspected that we would not be happy with her plastering her icky cat hair all over the protected soft furnishings. Of course, we were so relieved to find her safe and well, that she is now using this out of bounds area as her base. In fact, she has barely emerged all day.
Polly never disappears. She is the most irritating of ankle-bound cats, who never wanders further than ten metres from the homestead.
We carefully retraced our listenings. I had heard a little miaow by the caravan window just ten minutes ago. We searched for two hours. We called her name, we called. 'meaties' in the special voice, which is normally a fail-safe 'return to base' mechanism, but no response. Nothing. Not a miaow, not a purr, not a plaintive wail. We searched all of the barns and buildings; we paced the perimeter of the farm; we trod the local roads and footpaths. Nothing.
We decided that, at fifteen years of age, Polly had decided to slope off somewhere to die peacefully. But why couldn't we find her? Maybe a local beast had whisked her away in its jaws? No, she'd have made a fuss about that... We'd have heard.
We felt an inevitable deep sadness dawning...
On a final optimistic 'she won't be far' patrol of the cottage, I suddenly spotted the little minx!
She had purposefully ignored our calls, as she rightly suspected that we would not be happy with her plastering her icky cat hair all over the protected soft furnishings. Of course, we were so relieved to find her safe and well, that she is now using this out of bounds area as her base. In fact, she has barely emerged all day.
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