Overshadowed by the utter calamity which was Ady going to check on the cats first thing on Saturday to discover they had escaped!!!! I can’t even talk about it yet as bird lovers on Rum will be horrified at the prospect of wild cats on the island trashing the birds (they are a pair of neutered males so not likely to do any real lasting damage to the wildlife population but it is still frowned upon) and being facebook friends with Ann who sent them over to me and was so impressed with how much time I was planning to put into taming them. It was a wild, wild night of wind and rain on Friday and they must have been so scared they managed to squeeze through the tiniest gap in the crate which they had already explored several times in the 36 hours previously and decided against attempting.
Lots of online research suggests they will be likely still very close by here on the croft and if we continue putting out food we will probably recover them. I have a human cat trap on  order which should hopefully arrive this week to try and catch them or we may just suddenly see them appear around the croft. In terms of their own welfare there is probably sufficient rats and mice and birds to sustain them, in terms of the impact on Rum wildlife two cats will do very little, in terms of my own feelings I am devastated 🙁 I was so, so thrilled to have them here, so up for spending days and weeks slowly taming them and I can’t even share this current sadness or hopefully eventual victory. It sucks 🙁
In other news Ady and I worked yesterday morning – me at Post Office and Ady at hostel / White House cleaning. Ady finished really early and came to meet me from work rather than the usual other way around. The wind was so bad that all of the Saturday boats were cancelled, apparently the first time in 5 years that a July Calmac was cancelled due to the weather, crazy! Cat scaring crazy 🙁
Back at home we spent ages looking for the cats, reading online about displaced cats, looking for the cats some more… all to no avail.
Today has been some more looking for cats. We went to the boat to meet our latest WWOOFer, Manon a 24 year old Frenchwoman who lives in Belgium and is in Scotland for 2 months combining WWOOFing with holidaying / hiking / exploring. She seems really nice and is here for 2 weeks. I am not sure she will be much use for digging but will certainly be able to do some weeding, general helping around the croft etc. She had lunch with us today and then went off exploring.
I did some weeding and sowing and transplanting in the walled garden / polytunnel. Ady did some more waterproof painting on the caravan roof, we appear to have once again fixed the roof leak but as every time we say that we are proved wrong this is a tentative victory only… and then some scything. In between there was more cat searching.
Then we all went down to the castle for Davies and Scarlett to have a last go on the Xbox before bringing it home, Ady and I to help dismantle their bed and roll up their rugs (Mel and Em are both quite small) and have a last dinner / goodbye with them as they leave on Friday 🙁 I have not always loved Em’s company but will miss them both lots, as will Bonnie. It was a really nice evening with quite a lot of wine and loads of laughter.
We had a walk up the tower to the top of the castle which was cool – Ady and I have been up there before but Davies and Scarlett never have so that was fun. Then home for bed before another day of cat searching tomorrow.
:-(. Xx hope they return very soon
Comment by Mich — 20 July 2015 @ 8:10 am
Thank you, me too 🙁
Comment by Nic — 20 July 2015 @ 11:49 pm