Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
The Battle in the Bushes
by admin - 23:45 on 05 July 2010
Bess has increasingly become an outdoor cat since Spider appeared in her home. The newcomer might be the cause, or it might be that she wishes to keep a closer eye on visitors to The Rural Retreat's broad acres.
She'd barely finished her tea, ten minutes after I returned home from an exciting day at GNoME HQ, when she was out again, on guard in what has become her usual garden resting place. She kept watch, she cat-napped, she sniffed the nearby undergrowth, but she'd left on patrol when Miss Marten arrived for her supper.
This was fortunate, for the diner gave me some great poses, although 1600 ISO and slowish shutter speed meant the National Geographic cover shot remains tantalisingly out of reach. One day.
A while later, when my attention wandered from Bruce Willis on the TV, I glimpsed a familiar tail disappearing into the bushes – Mystery Moggy had been cleaning up the Nutella scraps. Two minutes later an indignant yowl suggested that cat and cat, or possibly cat and marten, had come face to face in the undergrowth.
A shadowy form (it was getting dark by now) sped into the trees at the bottom of the garden, from where more yowls emerged. Bess was nowhere to be seen.
Miss Marten – look deep into her eyes
and you'll see The Rural Retreat reflected there
Fearful that Matchgirl would accuse me of not taking proper care of her beloved puss, for ten minutes I searched and called for her. There was no reply, and I was just about to go back indoors when the sentinel strolled from the general vicinity of the yowls, tail slightly fluffed but otherwise unconcerned.
I called her in for a nourishing snack; ten minutes after that she demanded to be let out again. A patrol cat's duties never end.
Who did what to whom in the bushes must remain a mystery.
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