Although it always gets a little depressing, even after the mostly dreadful summer we've endured this year, when you realise it's coming to an end and autumn is just around the corner, still we've had a fun, busy and very interesting week.
You may or not be aware that my lovely wife, Tracie, is a very talented and popular crafter, with a successful YouTube channel and Etsy shop (please visit traciefoxcreative.co.uk for more information). Together we also produce a quarterly digital magazine called the Foxy Rag, which is available to the subscribers of her website, and the final elements of the new issue's editing and drafting have taken up quite a lot of the last two weeks.
As we have been working on this new issue we have come to realise that one of the two cats who regularly visit our back garden - one of whom we have been feeding twice daily for months and is now under our care, registered at the vet's under the name Outdoor Cat - has been looking more and more poorly. Even though Outdoor Cat - aka OC - never lets us near it but still sits and watches as I put the food down, this other cat runs a mile whenever we even try to get close to him. But, a few days ago, I saw him sitting quite forlornly down the garden path, went to take him some food and he didn't move, just sat and miaowed. It was then, as he let me close enough to eat cat biscuits from my hand, that I realised just how unwell he was. Extremely thin, covered in fleas, he was so weak he actually let us pick him up and take him to the vet.
Although chipped, there was no sign of his 'owners' anywhere - and believe me, we and Natalie, the lovely lady at the vet's, searched and searched and then, after that, we searched some more - but we did discover that he is almost eighteen years old and his name is Herbi. He is a beautiful, beige Burmese cat, with the biggest opal eyes, and even in the condition he was in, he was very friendly and loving.
We kept in constant contact with Natalie over the next few days but it seems as though his 'owners' have either moved away, gone into a care home or maybe even passed away, and so it became apparent that he would need to be re-homed. Now, we already have a cat, the feisty and fiercely independent - but also extremely funny and entertaining and talkative - Luna, and she just turned five. Knowing that she regards our house - as all cats do - as her house, we spent many hours discussing whether it would be feasible to bring Herbi to live with us, to spend his final time in comfort and safety, so we could give him the love he has for so long gone without. I mean, he's been pottering about in the back garden for the whole year, and we just thought that he was visiting from home, you know, until we saw what a dreadful state he was in. So anyway, we took our shall-we-shan't-we debate to the pub, where the white wine and the rum finally showed us the light and we decided that we just couldn't turn him away. As I mentioned, he's almost eighteen; no one else was going to take him on, and even charities find it difficult to say 'yes' to a cat of such grand and noble age.
So, tomorrow's the day we bring Herbi home. We have a big cage for him all ready to go, so he can settle in for a few days and so that Luna will (hopefully) get used to him. In the morning we'll be off to get the special renal food he needs as he has slight problems with his kidney, and at some stage we're going to have to spend another £800 to get his mouth and teeth fixed but still, Herbi will soon find himself in a warm, comfortable home, all his meals on tap and as much attention and affection as he can handle - and probably more, besides.
Okay, so it's update time.
We spent all of Friday morning running around buying the last things we knew Herbi would need, some new blankets, toys, bowls, special food for his kidneys etc and then, at 2.30, we brought him home. He looked so much better, a lot more healthy. We put him in the large cage we had bought, just for him to become acclimatised and for Luna to meet him safely and everything, and it was all going surprisingly well, no hissing, no upset and then... Then we get a flyer through the door, literally fifteen minutes after we brought him back from the vet's, and this flyer was asking if anyone had seen Herbi and could we call this woman if we had. Naturally we were, to say the least, hesitant, what with the condition he had been in, but we know the law and knew that we had to take him back to the vet - they had also received a similar flyer.
When we got there we spoke with Natalie, who was just as disappointed and concerned as we were, and she agreed that she would keep in constant contact with this woman and tell her, in no uncertain terms, that she would involve the RSPCA if she thought it necessary and then, sad, worried, we said goodbye to Herbi. Later we received a call from Natalie and, to cut a long story short, it turns out it was this woman's mother who owned him, ninety-nine years old, suffering from dementia and about to go into care. The daughter immediately reimbursed us for all we had spent - not that we were at all bothered about that - and booked him in for his mouth and teeth surgery. She was, apparently, mortified at the state Herbi was in (she had been away for two weeks, so she said) and had no idea things had got so bad. He recognised her straight away and was excited to see her, and she and her husband agreed to take him to live on their farm and promised to take good care of him.
So, that's the story of our brief encounter with Herbi. All we can do is hope everything goes as well as possible, and we know that Natalie will stay on the case, keeping an eye on things.
Good luck, Herbi, and we hope you enjoy your last few years in good health and restful peace.