Last night was not a good night - I got very little sleep - worry being the cause. Worry over a certain furry, black, one-eyed feline ladycat named Waffles.

The cats have outside access during the day but are kept in at night. Yesterday Waffles refused to come in and even leaving the outside door open, with the inner door (the one containing the catflap) closed and the catflap set at access in but no access out - she refused to be drawn. Shaking the tin of her favourite treats brought no joy. Vernon and I standing outside, wandering about and scaring the neighbours with shouts of, "Waffles! Wafflycat! Waaaaafffles!" into the night air brought no joy. At one in the morning we gave up and went off to bed. I didn't sleep well at all.

This morning brought no sign of the furred one. By now panic was setting in to me and Vernon was also concerned. Went through the ritual of calling for her - shaking the tin of treats - no joy. I was *very* concerned. Had all the outside doors open so she could walk in - never mind the constant rain outside. Then at 10:00AM I'm sat in the office working out my strategy for looking for her in the area, knocking on neighbours' doors, etc. when we heard it. "MMMrrrrowwwl! MMMMMMMRRRRROOOWWWL!" It was Waffles; her announcement meow of coming home with prey is unmistakable. Happy dance! In she walked; bold as brass with a nice fat vole in her jaws, which she deposited in my open hand. The announcing, "MMMrrrrowwwl!" then changed to very, very loud purrs.

Waffles was wet - it was raining in the Out, and had been for some time, and she looked as if she'd had a night on the tiles - slightly dishevelled. Sort of reminded me of my young, free and single days, crawling home after an all-night party. Hmmmm. Back in those days, my favourite breakfast to bring home was a bag of freshly baked bread rolls from the bakery round the corner. For Waffles it is a freshly caught fat short-tailed vole.

The vole was unharmed so it went into my rescue box to recover from its ordeal. Waffles was duly made a fuss of and dined on slivers of her favourite sliced ham and cheese spread. Her purrs got louder. Madam then curled up on a chair to recover from her night-time ravings. I gave her a long chat about the dangers of drugs, mixing drinks and spiked drinks and how it is much more acceptable to come home on time and how I should be telling her about safe sex. She ignored me fell asleep as I was doing this. Hmmm. No respect.

As Waffles was snoozing, vole got taken out of the rescue box - checked over and weighed (as part of my science project) and then released into the long grass on the banks of the stream.

I'm now off to have a snooze to catch up on lost sleep from last night.

Copyright © Helen Simmons
September 3, 2001