LOST AS SEA...PRESUMED DROWNED...FORGOT THE BIT ABOUT THE NINE LIVES...

THE BOY!

Its been an interesting and rather embarrassing few days!

I pride myself in being a very realistic sort of person who does like our animals but in moderation and sort of accepts that they are animals and not people and try to not get attached.

Well, Saturday night, Merlin, The Boy Cat, well ok...my boy cat, my very own, beloved (there I've said it and the image of fair but rather detached person is forever shattered) cat did not come home.

Did not come home on Sunday either!

(I should have known I was in danger of emotional meltdown when, the previous week, The Beloved had calmly remarked that it might be a bit too much to tenderly cover the aforementioned cat's ears when there was gun noises on the television)

Anyway, no Merlin and I sobbed, no really, great big fat sobs. In the privacy of the back back garden obviously. I was not going to let myself go in front of The Beloved or anyone else for that matter. But I think the apple and pear trees in the orchard(ette) at the back were quite shocked and the chickens really did not know what to do with me at all.

I however firmly told The Beloved that it was "all for the best", we (ah ah, I) were getting far too attached to the animal and it was the best thing that some fox or other had got him and although (sob, hastily swallowed) we would miss him (she then started crying saying bizarrely that she would miss him licking her toes in the morning), it would be fine and actually set us free (free to do what exactly was not specified, I was too busy going to the back of the garden again to scare the apple trees some more).

We went to Cambridge yesterday for The Beloved Birthday Treat and roundly pretended we had forgotten all about Merlin's absence (although I did have to go to the loo for a bout of sobbing around lunch time but less said about that the better really).

We drove home in tense silence, both ardently praying to the Goddess of the Ways (it later transpired) to bring our boy home and when we opened the door...there he was.

This is were, ladies and gentlemen, I lost my mind all together and , to his great terror and general embarrassment, howled like a banshee and clasped him to my bosom in an unbridled moment of joy. The poor dear was completely horrified and so, probably, was the rest of the neighbourhood (I  could be heard in Biggleswade, 3 miles away).

So there we go...very happy!