Bob

This is a desperation blip. A combination of foul weather this morning and a non-stop series of meetings at work meant that I didn't get a daylight photograph.

Since this isn't a wonderful portrait, the deficiencies of which are partly concealed by using B&W, I'll try and make up for it by telling one of Bob's stories.

When we first found Bob in the Rescue Cattery nine years ago, he was an intact tom, and the condition of taking him home was that he had to be neutered, poor chap. He thus came home with a shaved area on his leg where he had had his anaesthetic. The first night I made sure that the cat flap was secure, or at least I thought I had. When we came down in the morning Bob was gone, he'd somehow escaped through the flap.

We were in a panic, he didn't know his surroundings and might not be able to find his way back. We thought we'd lost him on his first day with us. We started searching the neighbourhood, we printed notices and pinned them to trees and telegraph poles. We asked neighbours and passing residents if they had seen a large black cat. Eventually, Wifie met someone who said yes, he had just seen a black cat in a garden down the road. And there he was, identifiable by the shaved patch on his leg. The house owner allowed us in, but as we entered the garden, Bob disappeared into the neighbouring garden, we climbed over the wall and there he was sat outside someone's door. I ran home to pick up the car while Wifie kept him occupied, she tried ringing the doorbell of the house to tell them what we were doing. There was no reply.

I got back with the car, but on the first attempt to bundle him in, he escaped out of the door as Wifie got in. We had another go, and this time, we managed to get him and ourselves into the car. We drove home and secured the cat flap properly this time.

We kept him in for the next two nights, and the following evening I was sat in the lounge watching a football match with Bob sat on my lap purring. He was very settled by now.

Wifie called me from the kitchen. a cat was yowling loudly outside the back door. We opened the door and a black cat burst in - with a shaved patch on his leg. He was absolutely ecstatic. We looked at each other and simultaneously said "That's Bob". And then, the question, so who is the cat in the living room?

And so it dawned that we had catnapped a moggie from quarter of a mile down the road, that we had done it with the collusion of the owner's neighbour, kept him for two nights, and that now we had two black cats called Bob. We debated what to do, clearly we couldn't keep both, we had to return Bob2 to his rightful owner, but how could we explain what had happened? We chickened out, we took him back in the dark and released him outside the back door. The next morning, though when I came down stairs, he was back, sat on the window ledge of the utility room. We sneaked out of the front door, and later he was gone, not to be seen again.

We've never found out where Bob was for two nights and three days, or how he knew he was home when he found the back door, but we are ever grateful that he did. And what an extraordinary coincidence that there were two black cats nearby, both of which had a shaved patch on the same leg.

Believe me, this is a shortened version of the full story. The longer version has a number of other twists and turns that there is no time to relate now. There are many other stories about Bob, though this is perhaps the best one.