Hide and seek with the elusive Snowy
prodding to get most of them writing.
And during lockdown, I received delightful stories from eight-year-old grand-daughters Sorcha in Ireland and Jeanie in Honley.
And to top them off, 12-year-old grandson Ruairi was a runner-up in his category, of 11-14 year olds, in an Irish Times competition that attracted 6,000 entries, and was judged by a panel of literary luminaries including Roddy Doyle.
That’s a lot better than I ever did at his age.
OUR deaf white cat, that we acquired from the RSPCA earlier this year, went missing. Her name, we were told, was Snowy but as she can’t hear a thing, I simply call her Cat. We kept her indoors for the first weeks and she was content with the arrangement – so much so that even after we lifted her own personal lockdown, she rarely seemed interested in the great outdoors.
If she joins us in the garden, she might go for a wander around the fold where we live and, if gone too long, my wife Maria goes looking for her to shoo her back home. Once out, she only rarely returns of her own accord.
This worked until the other evening, when we were preparing to go upstairs to watch TV or read whilst stretched out on the bed, when I noticed Cat was missing. Earlier in the evening we had been in and out through the French windows, but had been careful to close the doors after us. But perhaps not carefully enough.
We searched the house, which is not large, and could find no trace of her. We searched again, with the same result. I was in shorts but Maria was in lightweight pyjamas and slippers and donned a raincoat for respectability, and we went looking for her in different directions. Back home after an unsuccessful search, Maria said she had been round Honley Park,
Would I be forever keeping all-night vigils as if she was a teenage daughter (and yes, I’ve done those,
too)?
which must have made folk stare at a lady of a certain age in pyjamas, slippers and raincoat in a heatwave looking in bushes. “Poor soul. Has she escaped?”
Still no sign of Cat and our emotions were fraught. Snowy (in times of fraughtness, I use her name), who is middle aged, had been found in a green bin before being handed in to the RSPCA. We desperately hoped she was not in a bin once more and might find her way home and I was preparing to keep vigil by the French windows all night, if necessary, in the hope of her return, when Cat popped her head through the staircase railings and gave us a quizzical look, as if to say, ‘what’s going on?’
Down she came in her own good time, turned into the living room, stared again, and meowed loudly that she was hungry, before walking slowly past us into the kitchen.
Where had she been? What was the hiding place we couldn’t find? If she disappears again, should we be worried? Would I be forever keeping all-night vigils as if she was a teenage daughter (and yes, I’ve done those, too)?
Cat was unconcerned. But then she is a cat and they never are.