Friday 4 April 2014

THE MYSTERY CAT REVEALED

I love Thursday nights. Best TV night of the week for me. It starts with Arrow (Season 2) at eight. This is a downbeat pseudo-realistic version of the non-powered DC Comics superhero Green Arrow that surprised pretty much everyone by being first class TV. At nine it's Season God knows of Castle, the absurdly entertaining police detective romcom starring the geek's favourite leading man the charismatic but knowing and self-deprecatory Nathan Fillion. This is on at the same time as Lost Girl so I have to record that one. Alas Season four is demonstrating a massive drop in quality compared to the previous three. Castle is followed by Rizzoli and Isles, the female buddy-buddy/odd couple (but not in a gay sense) cop show. Also at the same time as Castle and Lost Girl was the second part of a new series called Believe in which an eight year old girl with some kind of powers is hunted by a powerful ruthless secret organisation and protected by a much smaller good secret organisation who break a criminal on death row out of prison to be her new guardian but, unknown to him, he's actually her father. Very promising start but I didn't miss it because it was repeated at ele...

Oh.

I owe you an apology. I thought this was my other blog -the pretentiously titled Freethinking: a journal of popular culture. Oh well, I can always cut and paste it.

Right, here's a new photo of the mystery cat in his new temporary (?) home. Can you guess where it is?

Yes, regular readers, you're right. It's my conservatory.

Yesterday lunchtime Animal Krackers got a call about an injured stray cat and passed the details on to me. Thankfully, when I actually saw it, while not in the best of conditions, he wasn't as bad as I was expecting. He did have a lot of fur missing down one side and the result looked like he'd been scraped with a cheese grater (actually another cat's claws). I was told he'd been around the immediate neighbourhood for about three years and survived by being fed by several people. It's also not impossible that he had an owner who just generally neglected him. He hadn't been neutered as the lady who contacted us found out when he peed all over her nice new settee. But he's not aggressive and it was her cat who chased him (but wasn't the one to claw him).

I took him to King's Road Vets where Wendy checked him over and kept him in. Despite looking a bit weatherbeaten and worn, he was probably only around 5 years old. While waiting for someone to bring her two cats here for their second flu jab at which point I'd take them to the re-homing centre (see yesterday's post for pics), I visited the boy in his cage. He was sprawled out on his side and let me stroke his tummy after which I took the photos (see yesterday's post, again).

When I picked him up early this evening after being castrated, he'd had blood tests (no FIV or FIP thank goodness) and antibiotics, and was given a flu jab and flea treatment. I was asked to make sure I kept an eye on his wounds to check for any signs of infection. 

He's now settled in the conservatory, currently stretched out across a chair. I've been in to see him several times and he's been neither nervous nor aggressive and seems happy to be stroked. Aelfric slipped inside more than once behind my back but there was no aggressive or defensive behaviour from either of them which is promising. He's now got three weeks before I have to decide whether I'm a. sending him to the re-homing centre, b. putting him on the fostering list, or c. keeping him. On initial impressions, and I do love ginger cats, I wouldn't rule out c. But we'll see.

 No, I haven't forgotten about the mystery aspect. Sorry, but that was just a hook to get you interested. I won't do it again. Promise. Anyway, now I've got to figure out what his name is. I thought of a good one last night as I was slowly falling asleep but had forgotten it when I woke up. Current favourite is Burnside after one of my favourite Blues singers R L Burnside who played raw raucous and often rude electric Blues. I'll let you know. Here's some more photos.

 Sorry, Burnside, it's locked.




He's not the prettiest of cats but there's just something about him...

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