For the kitten has been coming and going outside unsupervised for the past week now - I am gradually getting used to the feeling of not even knowing for sure whether she is in or out. She has been wearing a fabric collar (not the Gucci watch strap, sorry!) for a while now, onto the inside of which I wrote my mobile phone number with indelible marker pen.
I was conscious, however, of the fact that anyone who found her might not think to take the collar off and look on the inside, just as it might not occur to them to have her scanned for a chip, even though she has one. So I decided that the best way to make the kitten readily identifiable to the casual passer by was via a visible tag hanging off her collar.
After extensive Internet searches, I ordered three hand-stamped small tags on the Internet - well, it is always good to have a spare, and they were all so cute, and in such attractive metals and designs! Two are coming from an Etsy company in Florida that rejoices in the name of Critterbling. They are being sent first to Undina, as the company doesn't ship overseas, and she is kindly forwarding them on to me using our tried and tested mule service (aka a travelling colleague).
The other one was made in Quebec by another Etsy seller called M J Lessard, and it has just landed!
But because of the leadtimes involved with these transatlantic tags, I lit upon a cunning temporary solution, also one which would gradually accustom Truffle to wearing something around her neck. For my 50th birthday, my friend Clare gave me a perfume bottle pendant from Penhaligon's. You are supposed to commit a fragrance to the egg-shaped receptacle, from which you can refresh your chosen scent periodically using the dipper built into the screw top. (Well, me being me, obviously I never did any such thing, and the bottle remains empty to this day.)
The pendant has been worn though, most notably to my 'transcentendal meeting with Bertrand Duchaufour' on the occasion of the launch of Penhaligon's Amaranthine. Ooh, that is a genuine typo, but I rather like my new coinage...!
Now in addition to the chain the bottle hangs on, there was a tiny little rectangular tag on a separate loop. You could engrave the name of the perfume on it, I suppose, or your own name maybe. It bugged me ever so slightly, mind, because it made you tinkle when you walked. (In the auditory sense of the term, I hasten to add.)
But suddenly I spied a use for it as an improvised Truffle tag, and had the chap at Timpson's in town fetch it off the main chain and engrave my landline number on it instead! There was no room for the dialling code, but I am hoping that the chances of Truffle wandering out of the whole of Stafford are remote, though her territory is growing by the day.;)
When I got home, I slipped the tag on the kitten's collar in a trice and it hasn't bothered her in the slightest - no dangling in the food or anything else untoward. The plan is to upgrade to the slightly larger round tags when she is a little bigger and well used to the principle, though I don't foresee any problems based on how well she has adapted so far.
And here finally is a shot of her enjoying the sunshine the other day. Tagged, chipped, marked, and ready for action!
