Cat problems

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My friend ‘Rita’ has two cats. She also has two children and a partner who comes from a different country, meaning that the family travel abroad a couple of times a year to see the grandparents. And when they do, the cats need to be taken care of. She doesn’t want to take them away from home so has to find someone to visit every day instead. We live just a 5 minute walk away so are the obvious candidates. A couple of years ago we were feeding the cats over the Christmas period. Both the cats are quite shy and spend time both indoors and out (she has a catflap) so we didn’t worry too much when we only saw one of the cats for the first few days, although we did notice that not quite as much food as expected seemed to be eaten. But on the third day we heard miaowing and eventually discovered that the cat was shut in the bedroom – he must have sneaked in there just as they were leaving and had stayed quietly there for three days before complaining! And even more surprisingly, there was no evidence at all of any mess in the room, no smell, nothing, thank goodness! Another couple of holidays went past without incident, but then Rita started to feel bad that she kept asking us to cat-sit (although we really didn’t mind). So the next time she went away she accepted when another friend offered to look after them. The snag was that she forgot to give them a key! So after a couple of days she got in touch to ask if I still had one I could pass on, as the other friend had had to buy cat food and push it through the cat flap! I did have a key, but just in case I decided not to give it away, I got an extra one cut. Just as well, because this Christmas she had arranged with someone else to feed the cats. This person is the cousin of a mutual friend, ‘Cheryl’. The cousin currently lives with Cheryl, and Cheryl’s daughter is friends with Little One (bear with me here…). So that was all arranged, but then Cheryl and her family went away to the Lake District for Christmas, and accidentally took the keys to Rita’s house as well, so we then got a text message from Cheryl’s daughter to Little One asking if we had a spare key for the cousin to be able to feed Rita’s cats! How complicated. So it was a good thing I had the extra key, although I need to make sure I get it back next week in case something goes wrong next time! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2025.