And Then She Didn't Come

Mum is very upset. For more than 15 months, she has been feeding a stray cat - early on when she moved here, she found the cat lying on the roadway, with its head stuck in a tin! It had been scavenging in the bin bags for dinner and had got its head totally wedged inside a tin of catfood - mum was terrified it would suffocate but she managed to prise its head out of the tin somehow even though it was a very tight fit. She thought it would have to go to the vet or call in the fire brigade but eventually she managed to release its head without hurting it.

It ran off doing a fair impersonation of Road Runner, zooming along the road about 50mph! It was a very skinny elderly feral, very very wild, white with black patches, little pinched face, obviously having a hard time getting by. Mum started putting feed out for it but it didn't come back.

Then about 3 months later, as it got colder, one night she saw the cat looking in the cat flap. So food was put out for it every night and it would come after dark and eat up its dinner. It came every single night, and had lots of good quality food to keep it warm - mum even tried to give it worming tablets crushed in the food but no it wouldn't eat that.

She rarely saw the cat, only about 3 or 4 times in the 15 -18 months it was being fed - last time she saw it it look very plump and much happier. She kept hoping that maybe it would find its way into our barn and make a home there, or even come in the catflap but it never did.

Sadly, four weeks ago, on a Friday, it stopped coming. Dmitri, who is an animal communicator, thought that he saw it injured and hiding in amongst wood and metal bits - the farm yard nearby is like that so mum went and searched and searched but no sign of the cat. She went several times, with torches, and crawled around on her hands and knees, trying to find her. But no good.

It is now more than four weeks since she came for her dinner. Mum puts food out every night just in case, but she is very very sad. She just wishes that the little cat had felt confident enough to come and ask for help and that she could have done more for her. She thinks she has gone and hidden and died with no one there to hold her paw.