No this is not the blog being pulled because of non compliance with the new European GDPR rules but the actual lilac cat did go missing (note past tense, it has a happy ending!).

This is not a post about quilts and sewing so feel free to pass on by.  I do really understand that one person’s passion can be incomprehensible to another. I could never get my late husband’s obsession with Norwich City Football Club, he would even cry, for goodness sake,  if they went down a division! For the sake of marital harmony I expressed more sympathy than this suggests but taken altogether it gave him much more pain than pleasure. I’m guessing I’m not the only sports widow and many can relate to this. But as this blog is named after Skye and she frankly features more than any one single thing I’ve ever sewn I thought I’d share.

Skye and her cousin Felix are indoor cats. I have wrestled with this as its not a natural existence but today’s story only goes to prove my reservations were well founded. Being bred for beauty and not brain has it’s pitfalls.

No one saw Skye escape and I suspect a door wasn’t fully closed and in a busy household with the children off school it could have been anyone of us.  But she’s been more and more keen on escaping recently and on this occasion she saw her chance and went for it. Once we couldn’t find her in the house we were out in the neighbourhood calling her name and then settled down in the garden to await her return. Except she didn’t. Hours went by and no cat and we got ever more concerned.

I put her details up on our local residents Facebook page.  We are part of quite a close knit community and have been here for nearly 30 years so it wasn’t long before I got a call to say she’d been seen 100m houses up  the road but the trail was cold and there no sign of her when we went up there late at night.

With Skye still missing  in the morning action was needed and by 6.45am I was out leafleting. I had used posters when a neighbour and I tried to find out information about a stray cat earlier this year  but we found they weren’t very effective. Typical surburbian life means most people drive. I thought the personal touch of a leaflet would have more impact and more eyes looking out for her.

Sure enough another couple of sightings came through but nothing very recent but it gave me another area to leaflet. And on my walk back I saw a little face peeping out from behind the tyre of a car. She was damp, cold and hungry after going solo for nearly 30 hours.  I’m not sure who was the more relieved!

Stressed cats shed fur as you can see from the picture on my daughter’s lap. She never normally sheds. If this was the same for humans I’d have needed a wig by the time she came home.

She was quickly spark out with exhaustion on my daughter’s bed. Mindyou most of her normal day she’s like this!

I was hopeful that her experience of being miserable outside  would give her an aversion to the outdoors  but not a bit of it.  Given half the chance she was outside in a trice less than 24 hours of being home. Obviously I staged this and was ready to scoop her up before she made a run for it.  But she shamelessly edged the door open with her paw, little monkey.

As I say beauty over brains. In some ways it’s more worrying as we now know if she gets out she won’t just amble home. I can see more leafleting in my future at some point. And for Skye a new collar with a clear tag saying ‘I’m lost’!