Practicing on my own

Mr B has been away for over 3 months.  We've never been apart so long since I adopted him.

I'd been studying him from the end of his garden and he looked like he needed a cat.  

That first winter (2008/2009) was a bit rough.  It snowed.  I was living outdoors at night.  Fortunately F has a practice of growing her rhubarb in DEEP straw and for want of somewhere to store them, she had stacked a couple of poly-carbonate mini-tunnel cloches on top of the raised sides rhubarb bed.  The rhubarb never frosted off; so I had deep straw, low walls, rhubarb leaves, a double-glazed conservatory roof, and a fur coat between me and completely freezing to death.  It's pretty hard to imagine now during a summertime in Greece.

They thought it 'cute' that I climbed the ladder by their kitchen window and would be sitting on their windowsill banging on the window every morning when they came downstairs.

Cute?!? Stone the crows!  It's freezing out here.

It was spring time before I spent my first night indoors, and I was so nervous I spent all night sitting on a kitchen chair.  Little did I know it was preparation for moving house.  A few days earlier F had carried me round the estate behind their garden to see if anyone knew me - or I admitted knowing anyone who lived there.  I gave nothing away and fortunately neither did anyone else.  She had even followed me at night to see where I 'went home' to.  All she found were me and several other felines holding a silent nocturnal conference under the huge beech tree beside the big electrical box at the back of 4 houses along. 

And thus the adoption was completed and I moved house with them to Havant.  It was to be 3 more years before F agreed to be my blogging secretary.  Mr B built up his business in sailing and from time to time has been away for as long as it takes to cross the pond in a sailing boat, and fly back again, but this last 3 and half months is the longest.  He seems to have permanently disappeared into F's phone.  I hear his voice from time to time sounding tinny and distant, but I miss watching TV together.  Unless she's asleep F doesn't sit still long enough for a really comfortable evening in together. 

Here's me and Mr B watching TV in our good times: 

Practicing on my own