Cattish...

I’m not sure how wise it is, but over the past few days we have been feeding what we think is a stray young ginger tom cat. Well, we know it’s young and ginger. Genetics being what they are, the odds of it being a tom a comparatively high (or so I am led to believe) and it seems to be a stray on account of being relatively thin and a little bit shaggy.

He has, I think, tried to ingratiate himself with ingenue_the and harold_chasen’s boys, Pigin and Mr Philip Parker, but with limited success. The former seems mildly more amenable, but I think his brother, a gingery specimen himself, gets a little jealous and whilst the brothers together, or Pigin and William as we have come to call him, manage to live harmoniously (or relatively so) as two pairs, three is very much a crowd and leads inevitably to friction.

William (he sits outside and mewls a lot “Come and play, come and play”) had been in the habit of sneaking in to next door’s kitchen at night and eating what he could of the boys and their mum’s dinner. So we have started feeding him in the hope that a) he will leave everyone else in peace and b) learn to trust us a little and maybe pop in occasionally. At the moment he is still too nervous of people for us to get close, though he will eat from the bowl provided we move slowly and keep a discreet distance.

It doesn’t help that there is another cat, a black and while one we call Spats, another occasional friend of Pigin’s who eats what he can get his jaws around. If he’s a stray, he is clearly more successful at it than William and rather fatter. Again, he is wary around us and won’t come too close if we’re there. I wonder if our two houses are the only ones in the neighbourhood where they are not routinely driven off, so they are not used to people being nice to them.

Anyway, we shall see. I know that ellefurtle would like a cat, though neither of us wants to punch a hole in any of the outside doors for a cat flap, so a friendly visiting cat might be a solution.

Provided it doesn’t have fleas.