This is my cat on drugs

Phew, further to this, Mara is back in the 'hood after nearly 24 hours of wondering.

Yesterday morning we broke up a fight she was embroiled in on our driveway. Mara is only a wee thing, despite being over 8 years old, but she is feisty. Not feisty enough for The Cat of Death, a massive black cat with thunder in its eyes and steel in its heart - there was white fur on the driveway and Mara was clearly hurt, but not badly. Nickname Pending took Mara inside while I chased off TCoD (which was surprisingly difficult, it was impervious to yelling, hissing and even throwing things near it). We put Mara on the bed, gave her lots of pats and attention and eventually went back to sleep.

When we woke up again about two hours later she was gone. We couldn't find our pulchritudinous puss anywhere and it seemed unlikely she had got outside again. Many hours of searching ensued. This was exacerbated by Mara's lack of collar - normally you can hear her because of the bell designed to save birds (not all the effective sadly) but TCoD had pulled it off in the fight. I pulled apart everything upstairs looking for her and we had several intensive looks through the mess that is downstairs, but no cat.

We searched outside too, with the aid of our neighbours who are somewhat besotted with Mara. No dice there either, even when we heard a cat fight about 9pm and went running. Door knocking, ringing the SPCA, and asking at the dairy were also a waste of time.

So not a very nice night in the Span household. Early to bed it was, but I had the worst night's sleep I've ever had in my own bed. I kept dreaming that we had found Mara and then I would have to wake-up and check with Nickname Pending if it was just a dream or not. Periodically one or tuther of us would get up and look out the windows to see if she had returned.

Then about 8am this morning I was lying in bed thinking she really couldn't have got outside, so I'm just going to check in the storage area downstairs. I got up and walked into the hall, and there she was. I don't think I've ever been more relieved in my life. Seriously.

We rang the after hours vet, took her in and he generally used her as a pincushion. She even got a pussy cat drip to rehydrate her. Who knew?

The Cat of Death (Who Must Die) had grabbed her around the head and done some bad muscle damage to one of her legs. Mara's not very happy about it, but now she's on painkillers, two types of antibiotics and a sedative, and back home on the mend.

Thank you for indulging my cat-blogging, normal service no doubt resumes later today or tomorrow.