JUST PASSING THROUGH

by Pauline Dewberry

As any person owned by cats with access to the great outdoors will probably testify, the hallowed portals of the catflap admits an assortment of feline visitors from time to time.

These visitors will vary from the little female from next door to a big butch tom on his travels throughout the length and breadth of your particular county or state.

Over the years, our catflap has seen many a wanderer who chose our humble lodgings to avail him or herself of our unceasing hospitality. For some, a general vacuuming throughout the six or seven dishes laid within paws’ reach was all that was required. After a quick wash and brush up and a cursory nod to the Feline Bouncer on Cat Flap duty, and the visitor would be on their way. If the food and amenities were to their particular taste and standard they may use our services again when next they passed this way. But others were travellers through life and we were just a convenient Feline MacDonald’s en route. These we might never see again but somehow just knowing they’d dropped in made us feel as if our abode featured in the Feline equivalent of Egon Ronay’s Good Food Guide.

The strange thing is that all the cats that have just been passing through have all been black cats, or black and white ones. Sometimes there would be a spate of visitors and I’d idly muse if there was a feline convention and our house was on the way, rather like a feline version of the Santiago pilgrimages throughout France and Spain where pilgrims would stop off at ‘safe’ houses until they reached their goal – Santiago de Compostela.

Since having Biggles and Garfield over 18 years ago, these cats have tentatively stuck their head through the cat flap, had a quick sniff and cautiously padded across to the first food bowl – which would have been Biggles’. At the first sight or sound of a human, the visitor would dash back through the catflap and often the human would be none the wiser – just a puzzled look at a dish which had been full only moments before would give a clue as to what had just happened.

Ollie shares the feeding space now next to Garfield so his bowl is in the line of fire to any passer by, followed by Garfield’s, and then in order to nearest the dining room door through the kitchen, Sam’s, Timmy’s and Billy’s with Ricky’s dish being furthest away in the dining room on a green plate.

Over the next few months I’ll be adding stories about some of these great feline characters that have paused while on their journey and those who decided book a room to stay on for a holiday.

I hope you enjoy them.    

Dinkie and her family

Tilly

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