Today has been a rush from start to finish. I woke up, splashed myself with water, attempted to wash my clothes at the launderette, ran out of time on the drier, rushed home with a bursting bag scattering socks in my wake. I arrived at a theatre and went into a lovely peaceful audition room for two hours. Then I rushed out, bashed across London, lost my wallet, rehearsed, grabbed food when I was shaky, and now I’m in a bus home thanks to the kindness of my business partner putting the week travelcard I lost with my wallet on an oyster and donating it to me.
Thankfully losing my wallet is no biggie. The biggest horror is the £50 Hawksmoor voucher that I was saving up. If someone takes my card and clones it they’ll probably have bailiffs almost immediately and welcome. With a travelcard I can work, and plenty of people owe me money, so it’ll come good. Nevertheless when you lose your wallet you feel like a prat. Going home through the cold I wanted something to cheer me up and then I got a message from my flatmate…
Brian and I both love animals. We know it of each other. We keep on wanting to get a dog. We dogsit whenever possible for friends. We do that because it’s temporary and we know that the dog is not ultimately our responsibility so we can get on with doing unpredictable things.
But this evening, Brian met a kitten on the way home. She was cold and hungry and lost. So he took her to our warm flat and fed her. When I heard I rushed home through the cold on various buses. Now I’m home, she’s sitting next to me purring like a drill. We don’t have a litter. So we will almost certainly experience early morning poo and shredded sofas. But it’s a lovely unexpected visitor
Brian tried to call the RSPCA, messaged the lost and found, and tomorrow we are going to check the lost cats helpline and put some posters up in the area saying we found a cat. If there’s a family out there that loves her we need to get her back. I’m thinking of one of the last times I handled somebody’s cat, when I helped dig a grave for it beneath an orange tree. I want to make sure this cat finds its way home to a house where she’s loved and has nothing horrid happen to her.
If there is no house where she’s loved then there is now… Apart from the unpredictable hours, there’s a whole lot of love in this household.
Before I got home she already had been given the name “pickle”. She is being spoilt rotten. “Look at pickle,” says Mel, Brian’s girlfriend. “She just loves having her hand stroked.” Oh God. On top of the boiler, am I going to be worrying about vet’s bills? I’m trying not to get attached but… If we can’t find her home, I’ll probably get her insured which is more than I can do for myself. But there’s no National Cat Service.
Let’s see what the posters do. Meantime I’m going to try and establish a place for her to sleep… And curl up myself
AlBarclay 