Sadly the tabby cat I saw on Sunday night was “unchipped” so cannot be Josie. It’s a lovely cat and I expect the finders will add it to their gang of 11 felines .

I picked 6 kilos of plums this morning to sell to the Blackcat farm shop. As I was sorting the fruit out jumped this little creature with the unusual name of a Drumming Katydid (also known as the oak bush cricket). Jeremy caught him mid jump and deposited him safely outside.

This morning I spied a young blackbird which had an injured back and seemed unable to fly. I didn’t have time to do anything about the bird and wondered if it would become cat fodder!

This evening the bird was hopping around the vegetable patches that we were weeding (the cats were hanging out with us and I didn’t fancy a bloodbath amongst the parsnips!). We chased the bird into one of the chicken houses and I picked it up.

We then took the bird into the empty quail barn and put it in a cage with some straw, bird food and water.

Some googling revealed that blackbirds love fruit especially plums and apples. We put some in the cage. We will leave it there for a few days and hope that its wing and back feathers recover.

They hatched on Friday, we moved them to a run near the house on Sunday and kept them in overnight. Today the door was opened

Dropped courgettes and french beans and eggs to the children and collected empty egg boxes. Picked up chocolate treats at Poundland for the care home staff. Went to see mum and handed the bars of nosh to the always delightful carers. Mum looked great and we had a good chat.

Some may remember Josie the stray kitten who appeared out of nowhere three years ago. After taming her, spending a considerable sum at the vet and growing to love her she then vanished as suddenly as she had appeared.

The other day a local friend saw a post on the facebook page of the neighbouring village. A cat had been seen, regularly in a garden (a home where 11 lucky cats already reside) and was being fed. The cat lovers wondered if anyone had lost a tabby. My friend thought that the tabby looked like our lost Josie and she put me in contact with the cat people. Tonight, as the sun was setting, I sat opposite the feeding place where the tabby usually appeared. Sure enough a mewling announced her arrival and the cat people put out a dish of food. I sat in the doorway and took some photographs. I crawled closer and the cat stayed it’s ground. I called, “Josie”, but she didn’t respond.

The cat people are going to borrow a mobile scanner which would detect a microchip and identify an address. If this cat has a microchip it will link to an address. If it is our address then the cat is Josie. No microchip then definitely not our tabby. I hoped it might be Josie but I think that it is not the lost moggy. Mabel and Nigel say, “two’s company but three’s a crowd!”.

Leaving two kilos in weight. Add two kilos of sugar and make ten pots of Victoria plum jam.