As I Xi It

Watson’s tricky to photograph, he’s always on the move, rushing about, unless food’s proffered, then he’s all munch, munch, munch.

Cici’s much easier, he’s laid back and quite amenable to portrait photography…normally.

Cici does odd things sometimes. Just the other day, I found him chillaxing on the shelving.

Wot you lookin' at?

Sometimes, he’s just not interested in playing.

Do I look like I want to play?

Cici keeps stealing my seat. I pick him up and pop him on the pillow by my desk, but the minute I move, he jumps back into my seat. He has his own chair so I dunno why he won’t just sit there.

I'm watching you.

Cici in my chair.

My seat.

It’s snowing! Good job Cici’s home now. He’s been distracting me while I’m trying to catch up with work. He seems to be a lot more vocal that he was before he went AWOL, I guess there’s lots of catching up to be done.

Stop looking for papers and look at me!

Having spent the whole day calling up vets in the area (and boy are there many of them) to ask them if anyone had brought in  ”a black and white cat with a black dot on his nose. A bit like the the Felix cat, but with a black dot on his nose”, I got a call this evening from one of my neighbours telling me that he was staring at a cat matching his description out of his window.

Cici was sitting on the windowsill of a house two doors down from me which was undergoing refurbishment. I went over with my torch and lo and behold it was him!! The house was uninhabited and the garden was like a building site. I peered around to see if there was any way I could get in, but it seemed shut pretty tight. So, I gave Gauss a bell to exploit her animal welfare knowledge to see what I should do seeing as it was 8:30pm and I couldn’t get in touch with the owners. She suggested calling the council in the morning or the RSPCA who could legally break in to save a trapped animal. She also suggested I try and get food and water to him. Seeing as there was a letter box, I started thinking up ways to get him some supplies.

I popped home and had a rummage for some shallow plastic dishes, thread and a syringe. I also wrote a note for the builders so should they return in the morning before I made my calls, they would contact me and then I can pick him up myself.  When I returned back to the site, I thought, “lets see if this window opens anyway” and surely it did! It’d been left unlocked. Since Cici had made his way to the front door of the house, I went back home again to pick up a box of Whiskers, a pouch of chicken in jelly (his favourite) and the cat carrier.

Once I’d got back, I tried to entice him back to the window with the food items and then picked him up and tried to put him into the cat carrier but he decided he’d much rather walk than suffer the indignity of being transported in a box. Well, he certainly hasn’t forgotten the way home as he led the way back.

When he got home, the first thing he did was to walk to the kitchen to have some dinner. He managed to chow down on two of those pouches of wet food and a few mouthfuls of the dry stuff I’d left out. He hasn’t stopped following me around the house since he got back, and has had lots of cuddles!! He’s now asleep at the foot of my bed all curled up as he should be.

I really missed him while he was away. I’m so glad he’s back. I’m going to have to call up all those vets again to tell them that he’s been found. He’s so cute when he’s sleeping!

Xi and Ci

It’s been over 48 hours since I last saw Cici, he’s never been away so long. I’ve been querying the neighbours and putting up posters in the hope that someone’s seen or heard him. When I call for him out in the garden, I don’t get a response.

On Thursday night, when he didn’t come home before I went to bed, I left him a bowl of food in the shed. He usually sits in there and waits until someone lets him in. When I checked the bowl on Friday morning, it wasn’t touched. I cancelled all my appointments on Friday to go look for him, but no luck. I’ve contacted all the animal shelters I can think of and emailed them a photo of him. I put some dry food and water under the Discovery with the “Cat Cam” trained on it. Nothing ate the food during the day, but as light faded, something ate it all! I missed it. I also left a small tub of food by the back door and found that the tub was thrown across the garden and some of the food spilled out. I don’t think it was Cici, too messy. I placed it back where it was and this morning, some of the food was eaten, but the tub was left as it was. Could it be Cici? Too injured to jump into the shed but helped himself to some tasty morsels?

Last night, I went in search of him, calling for him, rattling his food box and waiting for a response, all I got was silence. I put up some posters on my street and the ones adjoining. I decided to sleep downstairs and left one of the back windows open so that I could hear him meow if he was at the door. I woke up every so often to check the garden, but the pile of food in the shed went untouched.

This morning involved calls to shelters I’ve missed out. I also sat in the living room and left the back door open waiting to hear Cici crunching at the dry food and eagerly watching the “Cat Cam”. I thought about camping outside this evening, but I didn’t really want to leave the house to buy a tent. Believe it or not, it’s one piece of camping gear that I’m missing! I figured that a familiar presence and scent might attract Cici home more easily and deter the cats and foxes who just wanted free food. Even having read about foxes attacking people in their homes in the news in recent months, I still think I’d be fine. I was going to cook some fish for dinner with the Trangia I brought many years ago and never used.

Unfortunately, it’s been a pretty cold couple of nights, there’s been frost on the grass and even the plexiglass windows on the shed. I just don’t know where he could be or what has happened to him. I can’t help but wonder if these conditions have impeded on the probability of his survival. He’s a pretty brazen cat, a few weeks ago, he cornered a fox in the neighbour’s garden and kept screaming at it. I wonder if perhaps he’s picked a fight with the wrong fox the other night and lost.

I really miss him. On the morning before he went missing, he was in my bed waking me up and having tickles and cuddles and now he’s gone and I dunno if I’ll ever see him again. :,(

Cici

Socks? Check. Toiletries? Check. Cici? Hmm…. apparently, check!

Cat in a bag.

Whatcha lookin' at?

I want to go on a trip too!

I’m not quite sure what this is all about. He usually likes to sit on the chair, not under.

Hmn... sumptuous carpet.

Do not disturb.

Ooh, time to roll over.

Cici got a bit carried away with the mouse. Its even lost an eye!

Catnip toy

Aren’t they sweet?

Cici's lady friend

Cici's friend