PYTHONS

So, Friday teatime, Susan tells me she's going to do a home check for two kittens with Andrea and wants me to come along. They've been on a proper RSPCA training course in home checks and are experts and I should go with them to observe their skills (she didn't actually use those words but I know when I'm being patronised). In the event it didn't take a genius to realise that this was a suitable home. Experienced cat owners in a  cul de sac in a quietish respectable area who had seen the kittens already and really wanted them.

Andrea contacted Lynn (whom I'd hadn't met) who had been fostering the kittens -these were the 7 or 8 month old ones I'd picked up from Ryhope a few weeks ago. Yes, they could pick them up tonight and she was also willing to foster Cat C'Mell (see previous post). So good.

Apart from a fraught drive back where Susan drove without lights until I pointed this out then me telling her to turn right at a junction I knew very well but not well enough to realise that the council in their wisdom had changed things so that you weren't allowed to turn right there. We got back to the shop and Susan left to go see her mother in the home where she resides. After talking it over with Andrea, we decided to take the cat round to Lynn's which was only a 5-minute walk away.

A railway line splits the top half of Grangetown and Hendon into two and round the corner and down a bank then up and down a bit and a left turn down some steep steps to the houses which border the eastern side of the railway tracks and another couple of hundred yards along and there we were.

Plus Sally aka Scruffy the psycho dog with evil eyes and straggly teeth whom I've written about before. Andrea had promised Sally's owner to take it for a walk. So there we were, me with C'Mell the old sick cat in a carrier and Andrea with the dog that looks like it's a pet of the demons in The Evil Dead.

Lynn was a nice lady in (I'm terrible at ages but she has a 14 year old daughter so let's say) her thirties. She also has two cats of her own (one of which was hiding), the other was a friendly long haired calico cat. Also around was one of the kittens which let me stroke her until she got so sick of Sally barking (which she does when no-one is paying attention to her) that she scuttled upstairs. I gently pulled C'Mell out of her cage and let Lynn get to know her while I explained what the cat might do (i.e.crap on the carpet) and the rest of her situation.

Lynn mentioned that they were looking after her mother's python for a while and that they also had one. I find snakes, particularly constrictors, interesting and was keen to see them so she called up for her daughter to bring them down one a time. So there was this fourteen year old girl (who wants to be a veterinary nurse) with a python draped round her. I'd never been this close to a python before, and it is a lovely animal, so I reached out and touched it finding it cool and dry, the skin a little loose around its body. Its head was surprisingly small and I nervously let it glide over my outstretched hand.

So, my first close encounter with a python. Nice.

I'm now waiting to hear how Lynn is finding C'Mell after having her for two days. She has my number and hasn't called so I'm assuming that everything is okay.

By the way, Sally went nuts when she saw the snake. Cats she doesn't mind, but not apparently snakes. Tough luck psycho-dog.