Jun 9th, 2015

Author: donich_admin

Cats in the woods

As I said the other day, we have builders in at the moment, and this afternoon with the work being quite noisy and the weather beautiful, I thought I would walk right down to the back of our property (about quarter of a mile) and sit by the Donich with a book. Just as I was setting out to go, R came to the door and ushered both cats in my direction. There a few things the cats enjoy more than a supervised walk right down to the back – I think they are a bit scared of the wildlife to go there on their own.

So the three of us set off and walked through the bluebells to a huge boulder on the banks of the river. This is a charming place to sit, surrounded by wild flowers and next to a small waterfall running into a deep pool. I spread a towel down to sit on, turned round briefly, and when I turned back, Schrodi was curled up on it and had apparently been asleep for hours. I turfed him off and then the fun started.

Normally when you sit outside in Scotland the problem is it is too hot or too cold or raining, or there are midgies or wasps or cleggs. Not in this case, everything was about perfect, but the cats would not let me enjoy it. It was like being on a picnic with two three year olds. They were down the bank and trying to go in the river, then disappearing into narrow holes, then chasing bees (and nearly catching them). The thing is, I appreciate they probably do this all the time on their own, but because I was with them I felt I had to be supervising.

So I gave up after half an hour and came back. On the way back, Tora decided to shoot up a tree about twenty feet and then refuse to come down. After five minutes of coaxing I was starting to think he was really stuck, but as soon as I turned to go and get R, down he rapidly came.

So next time I go for a nice relaxing sit by the river, R can look after the cats.