Cats are back
Since we have lived in France - about five years now - we have had six cats. Lovely little kittens, that spent six months being loved and learning to hunt mice, then cost a fortune at the vet, then disappeared. Every single one of them. It’s like there’s something in the air. As soon as a cat is big enough to be some use around here it disappears into the ether.
Well, four of them disappeared, two of them we can account for. One was run over we think, although it is very possible it was us that ran it over - although we found it a few hundred metres from the house, I suspect that it was stuck in the wheel arch of the car, having popped in for a snooze, and tumbled out when we set off. Can’t be sure though.
The second ‘accountable’ cat never was our kitten - it was a stray who turned up, seemed to like it and stuck around. Well to avoid having every male cat in the district turning up she went in for a little operation, if you get my drift. Perfectly quick and safe (and costly) so the vet assured us. Within the hour she was dead on the operating table.
The other four just disappeared. Could be foxes, perhaps, or dogs, although I don’t know if a fox will take a cat. Or maybe they just got bored and walked off, to find someone better suited to look after them.
Now two years have passed, and the memories have faded. Not the memories of the cats - frankly those passed rather quickly - but the memories of having to say to the children every few months “Sorry, another cat has disappeared”. Not particularly funny. So have we learned from this valuable lesson? Have we grasped that we just are not cut out to look after a cat? Of course not. The whole cycle is starting again.
We have just taken possession of a little fluffy white kitten. The children say the cat must never leave the house, and we have set up barricades on all external doors and windows. How long will that last, I wonder. In any case it defeats the object of having a cat if it is to be imprisoned forever, looking sadly out of the window at the mice and rabbits frolicking outside.
So I look forward to reporting back in 12 months time that all is well and the cat is thriving and munching his way through the mouse population. I have a fear I will be reporting sooner than that.
