Missing......

A neighbour called this evening to tell me that her 17yr old tortishell cat, Tilly, was missing. She had gone out in the early hours of yesterday morning and not come home.
NB: Tilly has been found safe and well a couple of roads away from her home

It doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to know what she was thinking, but dare not say, and as I sat there trying to console her I found myself remembering when Jax, in his youth, had done the exact same thing and how devastated I had been.
Backing onto fields, and hearing the foxes call at night, it's difficult not to think the worst.

I was lucky, Jax came home - eventually - after four days and three sleepless nights, there was a thud on the fence and there he was, as large as life and twice as beautiful. If I'd bet myself it was the first and last time, I would have been wrong.
Despite being neutered he's always had a penchant for being out at night when he can get away with it (which isn't often).....but sometimes he manages to slip past me and he's gone, disappearing like a shadow into the night.

For the most part he's come home again around 4am, yelling outside the bedroom window, demanding to be let  in, his joy at being home, compounded only by my own, that this time, he's safe.

Jet & Fudge wake, sleepily eyeing us up and down, rumbles of contented purrs echo in the quiet kitchen as Jax once again proves that he's far wiser than I, after all what other fool would be at his behest so willingly.  As I give him a few biscuits and turn out the light to go back to bed for what's left of the night, I turn and watch him settle down on the top of the scratching post, like a king surveying his kingdom and know that all's well with my world again - until the next time........