In between chapters on Sunday night, I made up a concoction of tuna chunks, oil and chicken gravy. Then I went for a quick walk in the dark to lay a gravy trail for the cat to follow back into the garden. Before the end of the night, we had a black cat in the garden and the dog really, really enjoyed it, but there was still no sign of Holly beyond the Sunday morning sighting.
I think she has got out through the tiniest of holes in the hedge and now she can’t find it to get back in. The poet thinks that if she got out, then she can get back in again. On Monday afternoon, I was expecting a lady to come and help who has humane cat traps and live cameras and who sits in her car close by, sending noises to the trap if the wrong cat gets in it.
This lady was very quick to get in touch with me once I’d shared the lost cat posts all over Facebook and at first I didn’t see the point. We didn’t know if Holly was alive or dead, and we didn’t really know where she was. Now that we know she is still in the village, and even within a few hundred yards of the house, then I think it’s worth trying.
There was still a lot to do on the ghostwriting, though, and that meant I had to go at it like the clappers to get as much done before she came as I could.
The day started with the usual faffing, but I also went out to try and break down some of the brambles that are stopping us from getting to the holes in the hedge. I think if we can get close enough to the right gap, then we should put the smelly gravy trail there. I sent a message to the cat lady, bringing her up to date, and I called the people who spotted Holly at the weekend to see if they’d seen her again (they hadn’t) and if they were okay with the cat lady coming to theirs (they were).
Back at my desk, I started today’s blog post and I brought the diary right up to date. Then it was ghostwriting… and waiting for the cat lady… In the meantime, I also went around the house emptying all the bins, I cleaned out the cat litter (finally), I did a dog poo patrol, then I took all of those bags out to the bins and I took the recycling bin out to be emptied tomorrow. I made us both a cup of tea, and I faffed some more and bounced from pillar to post waiting for somebody, anybody, or even a cat, to do something. I was far too distracted, which bode well for a late night of work and probably a ghost shift.
The cat lady arrived at about 8pm. I didn’t know what we could do in the dark, but she was the expert, and she did have a proper job to do during the day too. She catches dogs and cats in her spare time and she funds it herself too, taking advantage of any donations. We had a good look around, with a torch, and she advised us to make one of the holes in the hedge big enough for Holly to crawl through. Then we went around to the people at the back to set up a camera and some food in their garden. If Holly went there once, and she went there again, then it might be a good place to put the trap.
Back at ours, the poet was busy chopping at the hedge and brambles while the cat lady showed me how the trap worked. If a cat got in it, or any animal, that wasn’t Holly, then I had to know how to release it quickly. I also had to know how to calm the animal down while I worked out how to open the trap. We left a sardine gravy trail and some chicken round at the neighbours, and we left another sardine gravy trail at the back of our house and through the hole and we scattered some chicken there. Then the cat lady connected my phone to both cameras so that I could identify any cats that went into the neighbours’ garden as well as act quickly if the trap went off in our garden.
It was all very complicated. Especially the contraption that made the trap work.
The cat lady left us to it and for the rest of the night the dog had to go out in the front garden. It’s still enclosed, so that’s okay, but he also needed supervision still as it was all new to him, and exciting. Once the cat lady left, I went back to work, but I’d lost a huge chunk of time. About 3 hours. I can write 3,000 to 6,000 words in 3 hours. Saying that, it was a good job I was working through the night now that we had the trap in the garden.
The alarm for ‘camera 1’ went off a few times on my phone. It was mostly their cat, Lily – the cat that had scared Holly away on Sunday – but also the neighbour putting more food down once his own cat was in for the night. But when the poet was getting ready to go to bed, the alarm for ‘camera 2’ went off. The black cat that had been in our garden the night before was loitering around the trap, so we had to scare it away before it activated the trap and got stuck. It returned several times throughout the night, dragging me away from my work even more.
I worked until it was gone 7am this morning before calling it a night. (Day? Proper ghost shift.) I submitted the last instalment of the ghostwriting and the Part 3 revisions, and I deactivated the trap so that I could sleep. If Holly has been up to the other garden, then the trap will be moving there. If not, then it will be set in our garden again.
I wish I could take all of today off, but I have to write the bonus short story for the ghostwriting client. I also have a short story to write before midnight tomorrow, for my 12 Stories in 12 Months challenge. And, of course, I have all the rest of my work to do too.
Send energy and energetic thoughts! First, I sleep.
Sign up for my newsletter
If you would like to receive my newsletter, please follow this link or use the form below to sign up and receive your first free short story.
And don’t forget, you can unsubscribe at any time.
I hope you get some good rest. It’s all very stressful, but you’ve got a good plan in place.
Thank you. I had a good sleep, but nothing of use has shown up on the cameras so far. It’s fascinating to watch.