Monday, July 03, 2006

Missing Merlin

Today has progressed in a slightly unreal atmosphere, with what gradually became an ever increasing veil of sadness. Merlin went missing late last night and hadn't been seen for 24 hours. Given how fond he is of both his food and attention, that didn't look too hopeful.

He is back now. *Shakes head in a bizarre mixture of utter releif and incredible irritation* Cats. Free spirits, I guess. If you love something, let it go free, and all that. But honestly!!! Where the hell had he been all this time??

We'd all been in tears, especially Emily, and I'd convinced myself that this time it really was IT and that he wasn't coming home. Even his sister Cassie-Cat was moping around and looking lost. I wish I could read Merlin's mind. I wish I knew where he'd been, what he's been up to. Was he perfectly happy out there somewhere, playing, hunting, snoozing, eating someone else's food? Or was he shut in somewhere, miserable and hungry, but someone found him and let him out? I know some cats make a habit of going wandering, but Merlin doesn't so it wasn't like him at all. He sauntered back in through the back gate at about 9.30 tonight with no apparent signs of distress and promptly headed upstairs to raid the kittens' food bowl - and pretty much ignored the poems Emily read to him, written earlier in tears. :-//

Oh well. As I say, he's back now.

Earlier this afternoon, before the Missing Merlin situation became completely dire, Emily and I spent some time out in the garden. Emily did lots of sun prints with sun sensitive paper and she also did a lot of mental maths which, as everyone knows, is of course much easier if you're floating in a paddling pool at the time.



I'm now emotionally worn out so I'm off for an early (for us) dinner and bed. Busy day tomorrow - we're going fruit picking in the morning, Romy's coming for the afternoon and Emily's got yoga too. And you never know, if we're lucky we might just come home to a full complement of two big cats and two little cats making a grand total of four cats with NONE MISSING. Or else.

1 comment:

Elaine, Ellies Treasures said...

I always get into a bit of a panic if I can't find either of the cats at night. I do like to have them safe indoors during the dark hours. One of them has a habit, now and again, of disappearing for a day and night and it drives me up the wall. We're all constantly looking out for him waiting for his return, which, like you say, is a casual saunting in through the door looking for food! Glad all's OK now.

Happy fruit picking. We're going to be doing this very soon - can't wait. EFT