My New Familiar

We've acquired a cat. P works in a record shop in Godalming, and this cat turned up one day and stayed. He has no collar. He appears not to be chipped. P has had no response to the poster he put up in the shop window, and no response since we reported him to the local vet. When a poster appeared in the town centre reporting a missing cat, P called up - it's not this guy. He appears to be a stray - in fact, some of P's customers have reported seeing several ginger cats around the area, which suggests it might be an abandoned litter (or someone's cat has had a litter that the owner doesn't know about!). He's about 4 months old (he's small and quite fluffy, so I don't think he's quite a full grown cat yet). We've brought him home so he's got food and a warm place to sleep while we wait to see if someone's going to claim him.

Needless to say, I've fallen head over heels in love with him. He's hilarious - he chases everything and falls over stuff and chews P's hair. We've called him Phipps - after the character in Ripping Yarns who is famous for escaping from everywhere. On 2nd February (3 weeks away - giving his owner, if he has one, ample time to get in contact) we're putting a collar on him and getting him checked out with our vet. Then he'll be our official Cat.

In knitting news - there isn't much I'm afraid. I bought yarn to make Clapotis. I swatched. The gauge was right, but the yarn wasn't - it's just too stiff and scratchy (getting the correct yarn for any American pattern is a nightmare, so I aim for best match). I worried about it for a while and got about 60 rows into Clapotis. Then I relaxed, and ripped the whole thing out. I have decided to use the yarn (which is very lovely 70% wool, 30% alpaca in bright red) to make placemats - we've got some el cheapo silver placemats which I wanted to replace, but with red knitted under-placemats, they'll have a new lease of life. I have made nearly 1, I want 4 (as our table seats 4). It's a basic moss stitch pattern, and it's perfect for the yarn and for how I want it to look at the end. I'm not sure when they'll be finished... Knitting is now an extreme sport with a cat about...