Selkie's Crochet

Meet James! Oh I know we don't exactly 'need' another cat but he started turning up in the shed and garden back in the middle of November last year and was looking down on his luck so I started to feed him. There are so many stray/wild cats here with no homes and no one to look after them so I always try to do my bit. Anyway, James has decided that he wasn't just passing through, and now seems to be permanently living in our shed!

It's taken a LONG time and a lot of very gentle perseverance but he now is that the stage where he will tolerate being stroked. He still is very very wary but you can tell he enjoys being made a fuss of - I think he will be a really sweet boy in time.

His eyes seem to be permanently inflamed/running and I'd love to be able to treat them with cream/gel from the vets but if I tried that right now I know he's scratch my arms off and run for the hills...so it's still slowly, slowly with him.

He surprised me the other day when he was willing to eat out of the same twin-bowl as Bertie! The two of them tolerate each other most of the time but there's often a bit of voices raised and fur flying; hopefully this will lessen in time.

My goal right now is to be able to pick him up - with the aim of being able to get him to the vet and get him checked over and neutered; so far it hasn't been a success - I have picked him up three times and each time he goes into full-blown panic. I am hopeful that in time we will get there - at first he was the same when I tried to pet him: he'd think I was going to grab him and hurt him and would run away like a shot, but now he loves it.

I really hope we can make a difference to his life - so far all I've been able to do is treat him for fleas/worms/ticks etc (which must have made a big improvement to his comfort/quality of life)

This isn't a great photo of him but I love it - this is him sitting on the windowsill, just letting me know that he was waiting outside & was hungry!!