
Tully is the most special creature in my life.

She is 10 years old now (August 2024). I was lucky enough to cross paths with her in Scotland during I think my first or second year of PhD in Glasgow. I was sat in the office, not working and looking at cats on the Gumtree site (like Leboncoin) and saw her little kitten face. Everyone told me not to get her. I move around too much they said. You're too busy they said. The next day I was on a train to the other side of Scotland (Fife) to collect her. Best decision I ever made. She wailed and complained in her box on the train so I took the risk to take her out, and cuddled her like a baby all the way home. She even did the Glasgow underground.

For many years she was entirely an indoor cat. I shared an attic flat, then a tenement flat, even a cottage in Boarhills, Fife, when I taught astrobiology at St Andrews, which had a garden but she never liked to leave the house. Eventually I had my own nice flat in Speirs Wharf. She explored stairwells and balconies, but little else.

When I first moved to France in 2020, and the first Covid lockdown, I was away from Tully, she remained in Scotland being looked after by a friend. But I got her back and brought her to France at the end of the lockdown. I flew to Glasgow then we got a train to London.

Then train again from London to Folkestone, followed by an incredibly expensive 'cat taxi' ride from Folkestone to Calais. Then it was on the train to Paris, a taxi across Paris and train to Bordeaux, then a tram ride and a bus to Blaye.

That was her biggest voyage, but she also came with me to Caen, Normandy, when I spent 6 weeks there getting my boat license in 2021. We had a little appartment overlooking the harbour. I liked Normandy.

We even lived in an old attic hotel room near Bordeaux for a while.

When my boat finally arrived in France she wasn't too sure what to make either of it, or of the water. On the first day she tried to walk along the boat side lip, panicked, tried to turn and fell in. She couldn't climb out in that port and I needed to jump in to get her out!

She has fell in since then many times. Usually it is no problem as she can just swim and climb out the side, she is a very good swimmer. However, I am very aware of where she is when the canal sides are vertical and steep.

She once tried to jump off the boat when I was in a serious lock, and since then I always make sure to shut her inside when the boat is moving. As soon as I stop I let her out and she immediately explores.

Last year I converted one of the door air vents into a cat flap, so at night she comes and goes as she likes. Usually in summer I barely see her, in winter she is a cuddle monster.

She gets fleas now and then. I have tried drops and collars, but it can be hard to get rid of them. The vet told me fleas for chickens and those for cats are different apparently, and chicken fleas won't settle on cats. Most of the time I am flea free, but they break out now and then. Such is country life.

We also have the lovely habit of going for a walk together every evening in the dusk. She doesn't need a harness or lead, infact she gets annoyed if I don't walk with her. Usually about 800m is enough, but sometimes more. However, we must be alone, any sign of a dog or person and she runs back onto the boat, or up a tree. I have scarily and sometimes painfully rescued her from many tall trees! She now also has a very posh GPS tracking device.

One incident changed our relationship and how she behaves to me. She has always loved me, but one day in the Gironde a woman's dogs chased her and she ran really high up a rotten tree with spindly branches. Maybe 20m up, going higher and higher in her panic. The woman just left. I ran and got my ladders but they were not high enough. I then grabbed the cat carrier, boat ropes and carabiners. I climbed the ladder, then onto the rotten breaking twiggi branches up to her, grabbed her and put her into the carrier and lowered her. She knew what I did. Since then she adores me X10. I see her love in her eyes and actions.


She never scratches, either me nor anyone else. She's so soft and gentle. Even with the chickens she is harmless. Infact the rooster and big Elspeth (the big grey factory rescue chicken) scares her.

I'd be lost without my Tully, and she's be lost without me. I love her to bits.

Anyways, I thought this would be a very short quick blog, but I realise me and Tully are not a short story.

Anyways, signing off. Adi







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