Smeagol Visiting

We have three cats - well, the cats and us have each other. There is a big fat ginger tom Cathy named Orlando Furrioso, a small grey tabby Cathy named Kitti Shershebatzki, and a slinky black one I called Smeagol. So black he is that he looks like a hole in the scenery with luminous eyes in it: watching.

For the last month or so, Smeagol has been absent. But we noticed that his food bowl kept being emptied so we figured he's been coming for meals. Tonight I saw him, looking healthy and secretive. He suffered being petted and then slunk off again.

Smeagol is unusual because he is not related to the other two. Orlando and Kitti come from the same litter. He just turned up one day as a lost kitten and was adopted by the other two.

He doesn't normally hang about except in winter. The longest he's stayed was almost continuously when we had a baby. In those days he took it upon himself to stand guard: he'd take station at the end of the sofa or bed or where we were and sit tall and watchful like an Egyptian statue.

All our cats have a strong Burmese streak in them.

This is the longest he's been gone so I was wondering if he'd found another family or met another fate. So it's nice to see he's still around. As the nights get colder, I expect to see him more and more.