found

After I had posted yesterday's blog entry Mr Fluffy appeared through the cat door.  He did not look like a cat that had been wandering lost all day in the snow and the slush: his feet were too clean, his fur too dry, and his whole demeanour too self-possessed.  He consented to be clasped to my chest, ate some supper, went out of the cat door, came in again, ate some Dreamies in lieu of a fatted calf, and spent the rest of the evening reposing in the bosom of his family, looking gradually more relaxed as he remembered about home.  The Systems Administrator's theory is that he sneaked into a neighbour's garage and got locked in for the day, escaping when they got home.  My mother reminded me of the cat we had when I was a child, that used to go around to be fed by the inhabitants of a nearby bungalow.  They rang up when it snowed and he didn't call on them to check that he was all right.  I am more inclined to the locked-in than the social visiting theory at this stage because Mr Fluffy had never vanished for anything approaching that length of time before, and it seemed unlikely he would choose the coldest day of his short life to start visiting, and stay for so long on his first visit.

We will probably never know where he was yesterday, unless we happen to bump into a neighbour who happens to mention that they saw our cat.  If he starts making a habit of going out for longer we will know not to start worrying so soon, though we can then start worrying in case he is planning to move in somewhere else.

The garden is thawing nicely.  The thermometer sat above freezing all day, and the remaining lumps of snow and patches of ice got steadily smaller, then it rained which helped melt them.  Most of the shrubs that were bowed down by the snow have bounced back without damage, though I was irritated to discover that a piece of the evergreen, hydrangea-like climber Pileostegia viburnoides had been peeled off the front of the house.  It was already on a remedial feeding programme because the leaves had turned so yellow in the poor soil, and I don't want to have to cut a large piece off.  The Systems Administrator will fasten a couple of screws into the mortar for me and I will try tying the loose branches back in, but my provisional assessment of Pileostegia is that once the plant senses a stem is no longer firmly attached to its support it is reluctant to make further growth.  A well grown plant is a joy, but on sand it turns out to need a lot of extra care.  I have been feeding my plant, but clearly not enough.