An unexpected visitor

The weather forecast had warned us that Sunday was going to have a lot of wind and rain, but that didn’t stop the intrepid James, Heather and Ewan from climbing Ullapool Hill in the morning, before the heaviest rain arrived. I walked down to the village and met them coming back along Shore Street, and Heather and I popped into the bookshop and the delicatessen. It had already been very windy for them at the top of the hill and sure enough the rain was soon lashing against the windows of the cottage. So after lunch James lit the fire and we read magazines and books and chatted. We even played a couple of games of Maponimoes before dinner; Heather and Ewan hadn’t played it before and I had forgotten the minutiae of the rules but we soon got up to speed and it was great fun. 

We walked along to the Ceilidh Place for a lovely dinner; their menu has improved immeasurably since their cut down menu during Covid times. Then we popped into the Argyll Hotel to see Shrew and the Loveland Frogmen, a folk and bluegrass group who I thought were very good, and it’s nice to find out about the local music scene. We just stayed for the first part of the gig because after our big dinner we were looking forward to getting back to the wood fire at the cottage, which we managed without getting too wet in the on / off rain. 

However little did we know that a final adventure of the evening lay ahead of us. As we walked up the north road back towards the cottage, we noticed that a kitten of about four or five months was following us; it would run ahead of us, then fall behind, then run ahead of us again. It was an attractive wee thing; grey with a white bib and paws. Alarmingly, it also kept veering off the pavement and into the road, which luckily was very quiet, but it is the main road and we were concerned that it might get hit by a car. We kept encouraging it to turn back but it was very persistent and followed us over the bridge and along into Morefield. By this time we realised that it must be quite far from home, and as it was clearly so young I wasn’t sure whether it would find its way back, so I picked it up and carried it into the cottage. It squeaked and wriggled at this indignity but allowed itself to be carried inside and I put it into the study with a small saucer of cat food and the spare litter tray. It immediately scoffed the food and did a big and rather smelly poo in the litter tray. I shut the door because I knew that Tom and Flora would not be pleased, but they heard its little cries and were very curious! 

I’m not normally a fan of social media for many reasons which I think I have documented in the past, although I do use it occasionally, but it certainly came into its own on Sunday evening. I took a photo of the kitten (a rather unflattering picture of it sitting in the litter tray, but I was in a hurry to find its owners!) and quickly posted it on the Ullapool Facebook page. In less than five minutes I started getting responses from people who recognised it - or as I now found out, HER, and I was put in touch with her owner, who was very pleasant and grateful and sent her husband round in his van to collect her. Heather very kindly came outside with me and hailed the cat owner when he arrived at the end of the lane. The kitten is called Flores (she is named after a beach) and has a reputation as a bit of a wanderer although she has never wandered so far before! Her family live next to the Argyll Hotel so Flores had followed us all the way from there! She was very cute but I was very relieved that she was claimed so quickly.