It's been warmer lately - above freezing - even reaching 15c (59f) yesterday, so it's not surprising that Tache has been asking to go out and spend the night outside. He did so on Tuesday (15 March) and Wednesday (16) nights.
When he didn't show up for breakfast with Poof at 4 AM on Thursday as would normally be the case I didn't worry. By 7 AM, I was out there calling his name every two hours. Still no Tache. By 11 I went out in the 500 metre (500 yard) radius of the house calling out his name.
Nothing.
He didn't show up at 4 PM either, when Poof came in for supper. Bryan started worrying seriously by then too. At 8 PM, I had mentioned this anomaly to a few of my neighbours who thought me stoic in thinking 'that's the life of an outdoor cat' and 'I might never find out what happened to him'.
I played a bit more than usual with Poof (he lets me pick him up now) when he showed up again at 10 PM, still without Tache, who had never been away for more than 6 or 7 hours at a time, always coming in for a nibble, since he came into my life nearly 2 years ago.
Didn't sleep well when I went to bed around 11:15 PM, so I got up 90 minutes later.
Just before 3:00 this morning, I again hear the jingle ball hanging on the outside door handle. (Both Tache & Poof have learned that I hear & respond to that sound.) It had been windy during the night, it could have been a false alarm.
But there he was, accompanied by Poof. Tache came in, went strait for his food bowl (well actually, his bowl wasn't THERE, but it came down off the fridge right away). He ate a bit, checked out the house quickly and went back outside for another hour. This time, when he came in he wasn't with Poof, so I closed the door behind him and he's spending the rest of the night indoors.
I'm going to bed now (it's 4:35 AM here), but I expect Bryan will be calling for an update within the next couple of hours.