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Skitty-GingeSkitty Ginge is a stray. He lives by his wits alone. He’s a beautiful cat but has no experience of humans. He is very wary of them. He has learned that Tom Cat Towers is always open to him for a free feed, whatever time he turns up as Maid feels sorry for him. 

He sits by the gate and ‘mews’. If no-one hears him then he takes his starved tummy off for the day rootling around the estate, coming back at dusk. If mewling doesn’t work then, he will leap onto the gate and across onto the flat kitchen roof and pad around, peering down in the hope of catching Maid’s attention. 

He will throw a whole can of cat meat down his neck almost in one go. Then, without a thank you or even a backward glance, he is off again. Maid has tried to stroke him, but he looks at her with big sad eyes and backs right off. She did once touch him and he leapt into the air as if 40,000 volts had ripped through him. 

Skitty GingeHe is not a fussy diner and will have a go at almost anything from the kitchen cupboards of Tom Cat Towers; lasagne, macaroni cheese, sweet and sour. He’s not bothered what it is as long as he has something in his tummy at least once a day. 

Maid first met Skitty last year when muddy paw prints started to appear on both sides of the black 2m high gate. Skitty was jumping over the fence and sliding down. At first she though the hound of the Baskervilles and his friends were coming over as there was such a mess of paw prints! Now Skitty jumps on the fence and just sits at the top looking into the kitchen, waiting to be fed. Maid feeds him on paper plates by the gate so he doesn’t have any contact with other cats. 

Skitty Ginge doesn’t do grateful. I don’t think he’s the sort to leave a tip!

 

A Morning Kiss

A morning kiss, a discreet touch of his nose landing somewhere on the middle of my face.
Because his long white whiskers tickled, I began every day laughing.

Janet F Faure