August Nights

I am not terribly confident that I shall have an undisturbed night’s rest. We reached das Boot yesterday afternoon. There was no one at our end of the marina, so once I had opened up the boat, run the engine for a while and vacuumed away the worst of the dust, I let MasterB out of his travel basket while I unloaded the car. Contrary, he decided the interior of the car was somewhere he’d like to be. I lifted bags onto the grass and opened the boot for the rest: bed linen, food, new ropes, a bag of books for Older Nephew, towels and clothes. MasterB moved to the shelf at the back of the car and looked out, watching my progress.

When at last I picked up the food bags and turned towards das Boot he leapt down and followed me, stopping every now and then to look about him, assess the possibility of danger, sniff the grass. Why didn’t I have a camera in my hand? Then it was a leap on the gunwale, a swift look at the interior, and he was aboard. Great.

So far so good. All good until bedtime. I fell asleep almost immediately. Around two hours later MasterB woke me up wanting to go ashore. That set the tone for the night. And no, I didn’t let him out. But in the morning, a beautiful day incidentally, I opened the doors and the windows so that he could go ashore. He took a look, then came back in, climbed under the rug, and stayed there until two in the afternoon, when he emerged, made it clear he was hungry, ate, and went back under the rug.

He’s had some outside time this evening in his harness, but I am not convinced it was enough to make him content to sleep until morning. So it’s probably another night of pitiful, pleading meows, with occasional loud demanding ones.

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