Well, the donations have been trickling in, so thank you to everyone who’s given so far. At this rate, though, it isn’t going to make a noticeable difference to anything significant!

However, I do now have a real and somewhat urgent short term target. About three years ago, my cat had kittens and I eventually sold them all via an advert in the local pet shop. But, in December last year, I came home from a shopping trip to buy a Christmas tree to find that one of the kittens – now an adult cat – had just been dumped back on my doorstep in a cat box with a note saying that they couldn’t look after it any more so they were giving it back to me. No name or phone number, so I had no idea who was responsible – my memory isn’t good enough to recall all the people who took a kitten off me three years ago!

Anyway, I took the cat in, and had arranged for it to go to a new home (as I didn’t want to keep it myself). But, during the night, it escaped from the house and disappeared. I assumed that it had gone feral, or even made its way back to the people who dumped it, but either way there was nothing I could do as I never saw it again.

Until this afternoon, that is. I went outside, just for a walk and to get out of the house for a bit (paternity leave can drive you stir crazy at times!), and spotted a cat outside my back gate that looked vaguely familiar. I walked over to see if it would let me get close, and that’s when I recognised it as my erstwhile returnee. Except that this time, instead of looking healthy and well-fed, it’s clearly undernourished and desparately in need of some veterinary attention. I managed to catch it and stick it in a cat box, and it now awaits what will probably be some quite expensive treatment. I could just dump it on the RSPCA, but as it was my cat originally and I was at least partly responsible for letting it esccape when it returned to me, I feel I have a duty to try and sort it out. So my current PGMO target is to cover the cost of the vet’s fees in order to return the cat to full health. Please give generously – the cat will be very grateful, and so will I!

Here’s a picture of the cat in it’s current state, needing some attention. You can find out what it looked like when it was a kitten at my other photo site.