The Weather Thread

Very heavy rain yesterday late evening & then again overnight, still raining but not so heavy this morning but now there's sun (for the moment?

Stevie came home just before the rain really started, the other 2 were already home. The door to the utility (way to the catflap) was shut & I got their dinner ready. They have it in their rooms while I get (& eat) my dinner. That means I can open the utility (dishwasher & fridge/freezer there) without letting any cats out & also eat my dinner in piece. Last night I decided (unusually) to eat my dessert after I let the cats out of their rooms.

This was whilst the rain was really heavy. Eventually, I decided to got to bed (around 1 a.m) & went to get the cats suppers ready & realised I'd left the utility door open. Lexie had been happily laying half on sofa & half on my leg so I knew she was in. Shady also appeared from upstairs wanting his supper, but no Stevie!!! I checked the tracker & yes he was out.

I decided to get everything ready in the utility for doing their supper & also put on live tracking. I didn't want to do their actual food in case Stevie came back in the catflap & helped himself! But had to shut the utility door to ensure the other 2 didn't go out whilst I went to fetch him. The tracker showed that he was possibly on his way home as he was hovering around a garden on his normal way home through various gardens! I put my coat on (need the pockets) went out armed with torch, mobile phone (with tracker app loaded), the Locator handset & a bag of treats, luckily it was still dry & street lights made it quite light. Unfortunately I have to walk round the roads but Stevie can take the direct route.

As it turned out as I got to the end of the close behind my house I debated whether to go up the close (the garden he been in when I checked before was for a house off the road all the closes come off & so their garden runs behind houses on one side of that close). I checked the live tracker & he'd moved back to the other road & so saved myself heading up the other close & as I started further up that road towards his location & just as the Locator started beeping & I saw a black cat coming down the road. Yes Stevie complete with flashing blue light on his collar (live tracking) was coming towards me gradually speeding up. He got a treat for coming to the beep of the Locator & gradually he followed me home with the occasional treat on route (especially when he got distracted by his shorter routes or decided to roll on the pavement)

As I reached the top of my close I saw my neighbour heading to his vehicle (he's a private hire driver who does airport runs) & Stevie stopped just at the start of the turning circle (both driveways feed into the circle). I was now level with my drive (past my neighbour's) & I wasn't sure what Stevie was going to do. I called him but he wasn't moving & the treat bag shake didn't budge him either. Then the neighbour put his lights on & started his vehicle ready to back out his drive. That did it Stevie flew across to my drive just before my neighbour backed out & then he vanished. I thought Stevie had gone round to the back but I caught sight of sight of him in front the front garden.

I called him & opened the front door. Stevie came in passed by Lexie & Shady heading out!! Lexie came back in immediately but Shady was not moving (in either direction) from the porch area even for the shake of a treat bag. However that was solved by getting out some treats & suddenly I had 3 cats around me in the hall!! Bribery & corruption always works!!

So everyone went to bed just after 2pm with the 3 cats having their supper!! Luckily it stayed dry until a bit later!

Here's the live track image the red/green is a heat map showing where he was mostly active with red showing more time than green. The blue is the route. The big red block is where it initially showed him in a back garden so you can see what I mean about the cat shortcut home from there to home (cat's head circle) via gardens!  The cluster of 4 red blobs just to the right of that is where he was when he started to come to me so you can see that the green starts just after that which where he was moving. The blue line is the track taken. It looks like the small red blobs are where we stopped for a treat


Stevie track 20230918 by osiriscat, on Flickr

No rain here all weekend but its now chucking it down after I just told lotsofcats we had blue skies

Good old Dreamies usually do the trick tonib. I use them to lure Toffee into the cat pen at night. I'm glad you finally got all of your cats in. Thank goodness you have the tracking to help you.

Well I'm going to send you some rain scallywag because we have lots and lots of it.

You are so welcome! It's stopped here now.