Snowy St Patricks Day

The rooves are white and the woods are white and the street is white and the sky is white, and still the snow falls.

This is the strangest Spring.

Scabby Cat

If he ever tolerates being given a name, I might call him Monty, short for Tony 'Scarface' Montana. His wound never gets worse, but it never gets better either. It just remains red, huge and horrible, so possibly a burn. He has been here twice this morning for food, and then just goes.

Though he comes to my door every day, his mistrust of humans is very great. He will come a little way into the house, but if he hears anything like, for example, a human trying to sneak round and close the doors behind him, he's off. A neighbour is ready to help, says she keeps her cat carrier in the corridor and can dash around, but the issue remains the same; we need him in an enclosed space to enable a capture in the first place, chasing him around the garden will both fail and scare him. He has snuck into the house before, when the weather was like this, and we were away - I know because I came back unexpectedly (for both of us) and he streaked out like furry freaked out lightning.

Monty Scabcat, it's a terrible day. Come sit inside, I've lit the fire and there's a cushion beside it, a sofa and food and water nearby. Come on lad, the warm is waiting.

In praise of St Gertrude also more on Monty Scabcat

Yes it's St Patrick's day; it's also St Gertrude's day, patron of cats and gardeners. No sooner did I realise this, and offer up a cheeky wee prayer due to being a sort of pantheist-folk-pagan-christian-I-dunno-anymore, than Monty Scabcat was at my back door again. And he came in. And he stayed in.

We closed the doors and phoned the RSPCA to come, pick him up, get that terrible wound sorted out. Their answer was 'Can you stay in all day?' We replied that, yes, we had no intention of going anywhere in this, but Monty's feral and chances were he was going to panic. Sure enough he did, and in said panic, tore a large chunk off our french door frames. Last time he was trapped in our house it was thanks to our wily catsitter when we were in Oz; she got him in but thought the locked cat flap would be enough to keep him in situ until he broke it open with his head and escaped. Not ready to have him bash his brains out against the glass of the French doors, I had to let him out.

So I have been useless, and the RSPCA have been even more useless. I have been following their instructions for months, and they let me down at this vital moment.

The good thing? He had a good meal and was warm for a while.

Sorry St Gertrude but thankyou X