The cat apartment

This is the old gas cylinder cupboard outside our house that Mr FF made into luxury accommodation for the cats a few years ago.  He re-roofed it, lined the inside with insulation and put extra guttering above it so water doesn’t pour down and splash inside. I added some pillows and old wool jumpers pushed well to the back away from the door. The door is secured just slightly open so cats can get in and out but hopefully nothing bigger.  It seemed to work and was quite popular to the extent that occasionally we might spot a visiting cat in there.

Ever so often I give everything an airing, rearrange the pillows and generally freshen up the apartment as I did last week.  I was walking past the other morning and looked in to see if Enrico who often spends the night in there had made himself a cosy bed.  I was greeted by a red fox staring back at me.  After the initial shock my reaction was to close the door to give me thinking time, the creature made no move.  I called Mr FF who said we should just wait for it to leave, we opened the door again but it was in no hurry to go.  Later I saw it strolling round our orchard before it wandered off down the hill, it seemed perfectly at home and rather too confident.

Of course it stinks in the apartment. I’ll need to wash everything and the cats are not going near.   I checked last night before we went to bed and again when we got up, the apartment was empty.  

Strangely our rubbish bin left out for collection overnight last weekend had half the contents strewn down the road next morning, torn food paper and bits of an old wool jumper Mr FF had worn to destruction when concreting and finally thrown out.  At the time I didn’t know what had happened, the bin lid has a lock though there is a small flap on the top that is always operable, and the contents have to be in a sealed plastic bag.   As Mr FF said it could have been worse, foxy could have been wearing the jumper.