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@|³|MA3K
Long form - As if Sunday hadn’t been long enough.
I ‘slept’ in a van for two hours that morning, awaking at four on Dunwich beach to prepare the mother of all bucket fires for incoming riders.
Drive a gang back to London; wait in the pub and former Red Bike Shop for bikes to return via trailer and them to be collected.
19:30 and making a few trips to load the van for home, food and sleep; pop the sliding side door and hear a tiny ‘meow’ from underneath the front kerbside wheel arch.
Looking down I see this pathetic, dirty little kitten; clearly out of place on this quick and busy road (I don’t even like riding or walking down it).
After a short, universal hello in human-cat (ie that kiss-kiss noise you make to get their attention), the kitten half leapt, half limped into the van. Righto, shut the door and went to get Kris, the last of the stuff and close down the shop.
After Kris and I had a good look at the feeble beast we knew we couldn’t leave it back on the street.
Drive home and bag up the cat for the 100 meter walk back to the house (you try parking a 14 seater out front your house on a Sunday night round here..).
It was immediately clear the cat (a little boy) was in an appalling state:
Cue one horrendous one and one half hours while we washed (like an MMA cage fight controlling this thing in the bath), wormed, flea-ed and cut away matted fur. Imagine the shower room after Paris-Roubaix if you want an idea how dirty the water ran.
So after drying this poor, sad, shivering creature we made a little run with litter and food in our bathroom and locked him away for the night.
To the massive appreciation of our other cats we also spent a while treating them for fleas and administering worm tablets (the bastards are experts at spitting these out).
All done, order pizza, pass out.
Over the next few days the little guy rebounded and spoke to us (a very talkative kitty) with an increasingly stronger voice. Still limping and unsure on his feet but slowly gaining confidence in his leaps; he even reached the counter-top (and learnt not to jump up there again).
Currently living in the kitchen and looking better each day. My routine is to let him hang out there during the day to convalesce (lots of toys and climby-scratchie stuffs) and come out in the evening for plays. I also wake up a few hours each morning and take him with me for snoozes on the couch, either cradled in my arms or resting my chest.
Kris took him to the vet to discover that he was unsexed and un-chipped but after our interventions fundamentally sound.
Next days we will decide what to do with him but I personally think the more the merrier around here..
One last thing, as he was found under a Ford, I have named him Harrison. Think it suits.