Lost and found...

My dear little cat who was lost has now been found. Like I said in the previous post, he'd been missing since the late evening of the 14 June. 

On the 16th of June I was out of patience and fed up with waiting for him to come home on his own. I went out around noon to try and find him. I searched ditches in case he'd been hit by a car, I looked into windows in every type of building I could without trespassing (the neighbours and people passing by probably thought I was a burglar or a nutjob!) and stayed and listened to try to hear if I could hear if he was locked in somewhere.

I came home empty handed, I didn't find anything. 

Later that evening I told my mother that I wanted to go out searching for him and she joined me. On our way home I thought I heard a cat meow. My mother thought it was the cat that followed us but I said no and tried to hear it again. It took some time and I nearly gave up when I saw a cat (a black and white one so it wasn't mine) sitting beside a tree, meowing. Then I heard it.

Another meow from somewhere else. I called out; Svante, and I heard the cat meow again. It came from far up in the three. It was jet black outside and I couldn't even see a cat in the tree so I kept calling out his name. And he kept answering, every time. I told my mother that it must be Svante, eventhough I wasn't sure as I couldn't see him. We ran home to get flashlights and it took us half an hour to actually get a visual of the cat, and sure enough, it was our Svante. We called around and tried to reach him with a ladder but with no results, no one would help us and we couldn't reach him.

The hardest part of it all was that we had to go home and sleep, knowing that he sat in the tree, meowing for us to come get him. But there was not much more we could do in the dark.

So the next day I was up by 7 a.m and started calling people to see if there was anyone who could help me. There wasn't. It was the third day he'd been sitting in the tree and I desperately wanted him down. I didn't know what to do. I made a few tries with the ladder again but with no results. He sat approximately 10 meters up in a high chestnut tree. 

At about 5 p.m. my father came to help me and with his out-of-the-box placing of the ladder (it probably wasn't considered particularly safe) I was able to climb up and reach for Svante. He did his best to try and get as close to me as he dared and I had him! I shook the whole climb down (I'm not afraid of heights but it was scary walking on the ladder in that position and with a cat under my arm!). But the only thing that matter was that Svante was home!

Sleeping on my workclothes.

He was a little dehydrated and very hungry but with added water to his canned food he is much better today. He is still a little sleepy but when he doesn't sleep he plays or eats so he'll probably be back to his old self in no time.