Meet Hugo

There is a new customer coming to the Café Cosy. I’ve named him Hugo.

I know nothing about him, not even his gender; I am assuming he is male for the convenience of writing. He is not feral, as he allows my hand to come within a few inches of him, but he is wary. He looks fit and, though appearances may be deceiving, in good health. He may not be a stray, and could have a home at which he is regularly fed. He shows up outside my ditch door in the early mornings and late evenings, and waits patiently for a meal.

I have not seen any of the other outsider-cats for some time. Sable and Sablette were last by to visit more than a month ago. I worry about them, but vanishing for weeks at a time is not unusual for the pair, and I seem to recall that they did the same last spring. Come the warmer weather, the sisters don’t visit as often. A friend remarked that they may have gone to their summer place already…

While I have always provided Sable and Sablette with soft-food when I see them, they also eat the hard-food available, so they would sometimes come by without my knowledge and have a snack. I have not seen Hugo enjoying the hard-food, and he may not like it. Feeding this big fellow even an inexpensive food could become costly, so I hope he will turn his attention to the hard-food bowl now and then.

But making sure my visitor has something to eat isn’t that much of a hardship for me. Anyway, while he may have a home, he may not, and I may be his sole, or at least principal, source of food. In any case, who am I to turn away the Café Cosy’s newest patron? I’d hate to get a bad review…