Of lost cats and grogblogs

This morning I lost my cat.

Possibly he was pissed off and trying to make a point, more likely it was just curiosity that led him onwards and upwards.

He is an indoor cat. Burmese are incredibly smart in certain respects, but they have the survival instincts of lemmings. Also, they really are beautiful and exceptionally friendly, and tend to get picked up and carried away. So it's recommended that you keep them indoors.

Ours is an indoor cat, cutting a dashing figure as he flies from upstairs window-ledge to kitchen floor, skids as his little legs work into the turn and whistles back upstairs again. He has toys. We try.

But of course cats are still wild animals, deep in their hearts.

We got a brace thingy and a leash, but he doesn't like walking; he freaks out at the road or once he is out of eyeshot of the house. Home is where the heart is. To a point...

He gets regular out-times where he runs around the front garden. He likes these, he goes nuts one minute then flops in the grass the next. And what fascinates him the most is the bit where the garden joins the outside- the wall, the shrubbery, the herb garden where we found him mewling and crying when the idiot cleaner let him out the front. The bit that's just off-limits.

We got a new BBQ. I let him out for his morning stroll. I thought it possible he'd jump up on the BBQ and over the wall while I was upstairs getting ready for a few minutes, but assumed he'd end up in the herb garden.

I came down and peered outside. He was not there.

I looked around, into the laundry where his food and litter tray are. No cat.

I went outside and started calling.

I went through the house and out the front, and immediately did a walk around, peering into the herb garden, twice, and along the front of the wall (and on the road...). Nada.

I ran upstairs, peered under the bed, in the cupboard, under the visitors' bed, in the study, under the fucking study table, in the bathroom, I was calling, he usually comes when called.

I got louder, I got his can of salmon casserole and started tapping it loudly with a spoon. I did another round outside, peered next door, down the back of the block of units, walked across the road, looked under 2 cars nearby. By this point I was ill, so ill, and so angry at the stupid fuckwit who wasn't watching him properly.

My mouth was full of paper glue and my gut locked up with nausea. I am, to quote many a right wing blogger, a fucking dickhead.

I ran up the stairs, aimlessly sprinting through rooms. A thought crossed my mind that this is what a parent must feel - OK many times worse again - but the same, horrible, exponential rising fear when their child isn't where they thought they'd be.

I pelted back out the front and down the driveway and there he was. Just in front of the bins, looking slightly stressed, pottering back towards the front with a "dad, what took you so long, I was lost" look, tail bushy and up.

I almost cried, I gave him half a can of salmon. Now, late in the evening, he's passed most of it into his litter tray and the whole house smells. I care less.

He's my boy, and I love him.

And while he probably won't be at MoggBlogging tomorrow night in person, I, and possibly Mrs 'Gnac, will be there to share a drink with all comers and accept salmon on his behalf.

See you there after dinner, post 8.30pm, for an Armagnac at the bar...

UPDATE: Your nice comments are greatly appreciated.