Cattery Chattery Telephonically

It is just always like a little puzzle world around La Maison.

This was the out-of-the-blue reminder that E gave me on Saturday morning to fulfill his Friday evening task to 'Remind me to call catteries tomorrow!' But, you know... it keeps one on their toes. Or on the edge of their seat. Or on the edge of reason. And those are good and interesting places to be.

This type of Edward Lear approach works well with some people (me) and has successfully resulted in Angus's being now booked into an appropriate cattery for his own little holiday whilst we are galivanting through Wales, Ireland and Austria in a couple of weeks (and we hope not to come back to a cat filled with angst and malicious tendencies to look his people balefully in the eye and immediately wet in the corner of the room).

His vacation will be spent at Pennybeck Cat Lodge, which is to the north of Norwich. The people seem nice, facilities seem clean and well-maintained, and they have very good security (not that anyone who might thieve Angus would know what early morning madness they are getting themselves in for).

In the US, most veterinary offices have lodging for kittehs, but not here (not sure if this is Norfolk, or everywhere in Britain). Apparently, that is what catteries are for -- and this answers my silent puzzlement before now as to why there are so many signs for catteries along the roads on our drives around the countryside. Catteries in the US are breeders, and it was rather alarming and vexing as to why there were sooooooo many breeders when cats are hardly in short supply in the whole scheme of the planet. But, vexation over.

Who knew?

Kitteh is now officially ours and has a Revelation-style micro-chip implanted in the scruff of his neck proving this fact. He was the bravest kitty on Friday and didn't flinch at all for his shots or the implantation of his chip (which was through a needle almost the size of a bone-marrow needle!). And on this trip, he didn't yowl once in the cat carrier on the trip over; this went a long way toward holding me on this side of sanity, as I am traumatised by sounds of animals in distress (probably for the best that I didn't become a vet as my sign would have had to be The Weeping Veterinarian: We'll Cry Over Your Animal As If He (or She) Were Our Own. Not the best marketing scheme.)

A photo of the mad, mad, mad, mad kitteh will be inserted here as soon as E transfers from his phone.