Friday 13th October 2023

 

He hasn't featured so far on this new run of daily doings, but this was my view when I woke up. He is very photogenic. Gingernut literally wandered into our lives in March 2020. It was the beginning of the first Covid lockdown and we found him asleep under a garden shrub one day. Nothing unusual in that as we get many cats in our garden. But he was there the next day, and the day after, and the following days too. He was in good condition but he never left the garden for long.

Eventually as we were home all the time he began to come and walk about when we were in the garden, but he was very wary and it took him a few more visits before he'd come close. Once he did, and we succumbed to feeding him that was it. He stayed close though to begin with he'd mostly remain outdoors, only coming indoors after a few weeks. From then on we had the doors open all the time to let him in, it was freezing in winter. 

Wind the clock forward to December 2021 and he had a poorly eye so we took him to the vets. That revealed he had a chip but when the vet rang his owner they said he'd been missing for 5 years. His previous owners named him Lester and they roared with laughter on hearing his new name of Gingernut. He actually belonged to the mother of the lady I then got in touch with. 

He'd been a rescue kitten, they'd had him about 5 years before he disappeared and they assumed he'd been run over or something. By 2021 they'd moved away from this area and they now had dogs too. After a chat although they'd have loved to have him back they felt he'd bonded to us in his home territory plus they were not sure he'd cope with their dogs at home. This all concluded with a plan that it would be in his best interests to stay with us permanently which we'd love to happen. His chip details were quickly changed (he was registered in October 2010 so was aged about 11) and therefore since December 28th 2021 he's legally ours. And we love him, not least because he's more like a dog. There'll be more on that in the coming year no doubt.