VISITOR

A strange little cat has started visiting us. He's very friendly - comes straight over, miaowing as though he's an old friend of the family. As you've probably gathered, I'm pretty fond of cats, but I really can't go round encouraging unknown cats to hang about our house, particularly since he seems very keen to come inside.

For one thing, the cats who actually belong here, assisted by the dogs, would probably make a good attempt at dismantling this little chap, bit by bit, if he dared to pass the threshold. And more importantly, he must belong somewhere, and I'd hate to be responsible for him preferring our house to his own. It was just this sort of scenario that I was afraid of when Aineko went missing: she visits someone who invites her in, feeds her, and gradually takes her over.

Not knowing his real name I'm calling him Snooky2 in honour of the first cat in my life, Snooky, who looked exactly the same and lived in the flat downstairs when I was a toddler. He was mainly responsible for my life-long love of cats. Snooky used to come visiting (his owner was a friend and knew he visited us so it was OK) and charmed me forever. I actually saved Snooky's life when I was about 7 or 8. The big heavy downstairs door to our stair had very strange hinges, which meant that the back of the door swung away from the wall when it was open, and swung back when it was closed. I can still remember seeing Snooky walking through the gap behind the door as someone went outside, not realising he was behind them, and the door starting to close on him. It would certainly have crushed him. I charged down the stair, grabbed the door and stopped it closing at the very last minute.

Postscript
Shortly after taking the photo above, Oscar came home with one eye half shut. The obvious conclusion to draw would be a fight between him and Snooky2, but I never saw or heard anything so I'll reserve judgement for now.

Postscript 2
Something has bitten my leg. I'm not aware of our cats or dogs having fleas at the moment, but Snooky2 was rubbing against my leg with great gusto. Hmm...