Well, it is now 4 months since we last saw Smidge so I'm afraid we have to expect the worst happened to him. He was never what you would call a healthy looking cat. We suspect he was unwell and the illness whatever it was overcame him.
Smudge too has had his moments with ill health. About a month ago he had a scratch on his face and it looked a bit infected but it cleared up. Then a couple of days before Christmas he had a small lump in the same area. The next day the lump had swollen the whole of the left side of his face and was affecting his eye. He didn't seem in any pain as he was lying on it and he was still eating ok but he obviously had an absess. I was really worried about him and thought this was the end.
However, on Christmas morning he appeared and the swelling had gone. There was a blood smear on his cheek so he had obviously lanced the absess himself. He looked ok for the next couple of days but then his cheek swelled up again. Again he turned up with it lanced and there was just a small bald patch on his cheek which didn't look infected. Since then it has looked ok. He did go off his food for a couple of days and I thought maybe the infection had gone internal but this just seems to be a hiccup. We had a really hot day (40C) and he stayed in the pergola trying to keep cool. I took some water over to him but he didn't seem to drink it. He ate a little and then was missing the next day. Today he turned up at 5.45am and was ravenous. He ate his normal meal and some Friskies. Then went off. I got the kids up at 8.45am and drew the curtains and he wasn't there but when I had woken the kids up he was there waiting for food. I gave him 2 more lots of Friskies which he ate completely. So hopefully he has turned a corner.
It is much cooler and rainy today and he is curled up under the camelia tree in the next doors garden.
Since Smidge has disappeared Smudge has definitely become more friendly. Every morning when I bring his food out I squat down and he rubs up against my knees/legs or hand. I give him a stroke and sometimes tickle the back of his neck. He seems to enjoy this but is still very skittish and cowers a way if he notices my hand moving towards him. It is a little demoralising as you would think that after 3 years he would know I won't harm him.
We are however seeing less of him. Most days he only comes for food and then disappears off back next door, which is empty. There are times when I have to go to the hedge and call him and bang the tin and he comes to see me. The occasional day he will sit under the conifer in view of the back door but those are few and far between.
He still goes off on his jaunts every night. We see him sitting by the gate. Then he watches the road and ventures under the gate and then runs across the road into the schoolyard across the road. Then he runs along the side of the school building and across and out the gates at the bottom of the road. I followed him once. He then went into the garden at the corner of the road. He sat under a bush just by the wall for ages and then he moved to some more bushes close to the main road and near the pedestrian crossing. I didn't see where he went from there as he spotted me and I didn't want to panic him into crossing Gisborne Road.
One night about 11.30 pm I was coming back from a night out scrapping and saw him outside the church on the other side of the road. He ran along the side of the church and was gone. I had wondered if he was going to the fields down the end of Lerderderg St but now I don't know.
