I had a thought today (I know, l know), it was about life in the garden. What triggered the thought was a cat – not our Misty, a nearby neighbours moggy. Cute looking thing, quite long hair, white with patches of faded grey, I don’t know its name but for the sake of argument, let’s call it Sooty. Anyhow, Sooty has taken to paying us a visit every so often and I think hangs out either under the BBQ or the table. Now, Sooty doesn’t know it, but I would absolutely never do anything to harm her (I think it’s a her), beyond giving her a bit of a shooing after all it is Misty’s garden.
Sooty isn’t the only cat to visit us. Next up is Harrison. He’s a bit of a strange one. He supposedly owns our friends a couple of houses down, but he is looked after,even to the extent of the occasional vets bill, by next door. We don’t know how it happened but he only has one eye. That wasn’t the cause of his extremely grumpy disposition.
Harrison does not like to be told to vacate the garden, to the extent that he and I have the occasional caterwauling contest, after which he slinks off growling, only to return once he sees me go in. Harrison sprays in the garden, I do confess to interrupting him mid-spurt.
There are at least two other cats that spend time in the garden, one a rather graceful black cat, let’s call him Blackie. He reminds me of Rascal, whom I miss very much. I don’t see him that often, and when I do, I am reluctant to shoo him away but it is Misty’s garden.
When we first moved here in 2014, we had to move a lot of Russian vine (also called mile-a-minute I believe, because of its ridiculously rapid rate of growth off the top of the shed. On that occasion, as I was doing so, I came almost literally face to face with a rather stunning fox, sleeping in the midst of the growth.
The vine hasn’t ruled the shed roof for quite a few years now, we keep it cleared. I think Mr. Fox was a tad fed up with us, and talked to the local skulk (that’s what a collection of foxes is called – I didn’t know that until just now). Which accounts for them using our lawn as the local toilet!
Then of course, there are the birds. But they are another post.
Bills Posts 