KITTY KAT

How do they know to do that?!

I was on the third tee of the local golf course, Rimaison, a long way from civilization, when I spot a light brown kitten about 150 metres away down by the lake. Barely a few weeks old it spotted me and was by my side in a flash doing all the things kittens do to win you over. I was polite, stroked its head and strode of briskly in the direction of where my ball had landed. After about 100 metres I snuck a look over my shoulder.  Mistake! Kitty had barely moved but that was all the encouragement it needed. In no time it was with me again. I lifted it clear, played my shot and headed towards the green (of course I hit the green!!). Next thing kitty was there again and I thought if you start patting that ball about I'm going to get annoyed!

It then followed me to the next tee which is as far away from the clubhouse as you can get. I was now getting worried either I was going to hit it with a ball or the club or it was going to die of exhaustion following me about. What to do? Bright idea! Unzip pouch on side of golf bag and insert kitty onto soft wet weather gear, head sticking out. I was then able to complete the nine holes with my assistant who was quite happy to stay there while I was moving.

I dropped in at the clubhouse and introduced the manager to my "petite probleme". He is a bigger sucker than I am and when I told him I couldn't take it home as I live in Australia he offered to take care of it. I'll be going over there again in the next few days to find out how things turned out.

I'm a bit of a magnet for kitties. One turned up at the house here three years ago and stayed for 6 weeks. It was a great pal and caused a dilemma because we were booked to go to Scotland for two weeks. I couldn't find anyone to take it on locally so was forced to hand it in to the animal welfare shelter not far away. They say they keep them until someone comes in who wants one and it was still there when we got back from the trip but I'm not sure about the following year.