The sniffing began the day Harry and William arrived.
It started in my bedroom during quarantine, then spread to the house — the floor space, the furniture, the kitchen. What began as mild amusement soon turned into fascination, because nothing was passed by or overlooked.
Then the garden presented itself.
From the moment two small heads appeared around the door, it became a sniffing frenzy — even as they played around the rock.
The days that followed were spent mostly outside. The house became a place for eating and sleeping, but for everything else, it was the garden — and it was all new smells.
They moved with purpose, almost as if they had an agenda. I spent as much time as I could with them out there, because to me this was all part of them learning how to be cats. Only later did I realise the question wasn’t what was I teaching them, but who was teaching who.
The sniffing never stopped.
Fences, walls, gravel, grass, bushes, boulders — nothing was ignored. They played, of course, but the sniffing was constant, and at the time I couldn’t understand why.
There was no reference point to fall back on. Apart from one man in the US whose blind cat fought raccoons, I seemed to be the only person letting blind cats simply be cats — outside, in a garden, alongside seeing cats.
I was on my own, and at times I struggled.
But with every passing day, their confidence grew.
Weeks became months. Apart from the sniffing, life settled into a rhythm. It was summer now, and they were in the garden most days. At night, the two of them would cuddle up together and sleep, every single night.
William doted on Harry.
Harry… Harry was different.
Both kittens were intelligent, but Harry was clever — and cunning. All that sniffing wasn’t random. He was marking time, gathering information, preparing. Harry had no intention of staying in the garden.
He wanted to live his life as a cat — to come and go as he pleased.
At first, I thought it was just another game. Harry would trot off as I got close, then run, always just staying out of reach. For a while, I had the advantage of sight, and catching him was easy enough.
But he wasn’t always happy about it.
There were times he hissed or growled at me. As weeks passed, he became harder to catch — slipping through gaps, disappearing under bushes, finding holes in fences I didn’t know existed.
One day, I saw him climb onto a wall and walk confidently along the coping stones into another garden — a house with cats.
How did he know where to go? 🤣
Then one afternoon, I couldn’t find him.
Night fell. There are no lights on the back road — it was pitch black. I searched back and forth all night. Nothing.
The following day I searched again. Then the next. Three days passed with no sign of him.
On the fourth day, Harry limped back in.
The relief was overwhelming — but his leg needed checking. I feared a viper bite. It turned out to be a dog bite. He healed, but was left with a slight limp.
Something else had changed.
The games stopped.
Harry became more settled, happier to stay in the garden. By now, he was great with me. William still wasn’t — the furthest he ventured was to the top of the rockery, where he’d sit by the chain-link fence and listen to the world go by. The locals all knew him and would stop to say hello.
Life felt settled again.
Harry was never late for food. He loved his meals. Always long and slim — much like Scoots is now — which was surprising, because he could pack it away 🤣
Then one morning, he didn’t come in.
That was unusual.
I was busy in the kitchen, but when he still wasn’t there at feeding time, everything stopped. I called. I searched. Nothing.
A bad feeling crept in.
Although Harry had never gone up the steps to the gate that led to the road, I checked.
He was there.
On the road.
Dead.
I cried. I couldn’t help it.
I’d lost my fiancée in early 2018, and those two kittens had brought something back into my life that I didn’t even realise was missing.
I moved Harry from the road, wrapped him up, and took care of him. Burying him wasn’t an option — the ground here is hard, and the last thing I wanted was for William to find him.
I had already seen how William reacted when Harry went missing.
Now Harry was gone.
That day, William searched.
By evening, he was anxious. As the days passed, he became frantic. I scrubbed the steps, the road, everything — even with bleach — but William still found Harry’s scent and would run straight up the steps every time.
So I had to keep him indoors.
It didn’t help our relationship.
William was inconsolable. He didn’t want me. He didn’t want comfort, treats, or silly voices. All he wanted was for Harry to come back through the door.
It was awful.
It went on for nearly two months before he began to settle. Eventually, we went back outside. It was a Sunday — quiet, not much traffic. William seemed okay.
I relaxed.
I shouldn’t have.
He ran up the steps, and I wasn’t close enough to stop him.
He went onto the road and was clipped by a car.
I saw it happen.
He wasn’t dead.
I managed to reach the local vet — still open. Yes. Got William into the car and drove straight there. They were waiting.
He had blood on his face and was unsteady, but tests showed he’d been incredibly lucky. He hadn’t been struck directly — most likely the tyre glanced his face.
It wasn’t critical.
More tests were needed, but he came home with me that day and had to be monitored. He still wouldn’t acknowledge me, and that distance stayed for another six months.
But he was alive.