Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/09/22/autumn-with-cats-and-flowers/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=87370

This is Charlie playing leopard-draped-on-a-tree-branch and enjoying end-of-summer sun here in Broadview. He’s giving me a baleful look for two reasons. One, he doesn’t entirely trust the unseasonal sunshine; he’s knows autumn is stealing through the trees towards us. And, two, he’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be photographed until his fur is back to to its full magnificence but, eh, he’s not longer Carolus.Imp but a mere Baron of Beasts, so I risked his displeasure.

Two closeups illustrate just how well his scars are healing now. This is his right side, where he had two lesser wounds: one so shallow it’s already vanished, the other small enough to just require a bit of a shave and a good clean but no stitching. As you can see, it’s almost perfectly healed.

Of course it was the left that was the problem. The vet had to shave his foreleg to get the IV in and though the fur is just beginning to come back in, the gap makes him look as though he’s wearing a little blond mitten on his paw. (But, oh, if you want to see *baleful*, call him Sweet Kitten Mitten…) You can’t really see it from this angle, but if you go back to that first photo and click through to embiggen you can see the scar is doing really well. That central quadrant messiness is just bits of old skin that aren’t quite ready to come off yet, but now even the superficial opening in that section is closing. In a few weeks no one would ever know anyone of this happened.

George meanwhile, has been enjoying the last days of sun here in Seattle though the other evening he deigned to make a brief appearance and consented to a single photo—after all, as a Gentleman Spy and International Cat of Mystery, it simply doesn’t do to permit one’s likeness to be bruited about the internet for the consumption of hoi polloi—not to mention the nefarious purposes of the other side’s Bad Actors.

As you can see, he is as debonair as ever—note the handsome though tastefully understated duelling scar.

The summer, though, is coming to an end. This was the sun earlier this week on the drive home—there’s something about those colours that can be nothing but that rich, mellow moment where the world hangs between harvest-is-in and winter-must-be-readied-for…

And here it is, right over our house.

Earlier that same day, this was the state of the flowers on the back deck:

Some things are still blooming—but fewer, and the colours are a little less vibrant. The hummingbirds and bees, though, are still very much enjoying the different salvia—and of course the four-footed members of our household are enjoying planning their demise. (It won’t happen—we try to make sure that things grow in such a way that predatory leaps are difficult. But it’s endlessly entertaining for all.)

And so, as autumn beings, that’s the state of play here in the Griffith-Eskridge household. I have plenty of other news to share in the coming days, but for now, carpe the sweet richness of the harvest and the last lingering of light and warmth as the world turns…

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/09/22/autumn-with-cats-and-flowers/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=87370