single minded Millie

It's always furiously difficult getting up close to my mum's cat when I go home - she is both single minded and illusive. Here she is, looking exactly that.
Every day, however, she gives up her policy of caution and distance and accompanies my parents on a ten minute walk. To my knowledge, this is fairly unusual behaviour for a cat, much less one who is ordinarily rather unfriendly. At six thirty every evening she sits outside the meadow behind my parents' house. They walk to meet her and set off along one side of it, while she gingerly pursues them, careful to never allow herself to come within ten yards. Once they reach the top of the field my parents will stop and Millie will take the opportunity to come nearer, perhaps allowing them to reach down and stroke the nape of her neck.

Then, after a moment's pause, she takes control of the second leg of the adventure. Suddenly she will leap to her feat and dart onto the outdoor table, and wait for my parents to go and give her a cuddle. This is the only time of the day, generally, when she makes herself available for a proper stroking. Having pranced about between them for a moment or two, she leaps off the table and runs at full pelt to the other side of the meadow. It is my parents' job to follow, and now the dynamic of the first half of the walk is reversed. Millie leads and my parents follow. Half way back is a flowerbed with two distinct paths through it. At the point where the path splits, Millie thinks hard and takes one route or the other. Once my parents have followed her back to the gate she either lingers while they stroll back to the house, or gallops off, back to pretending that they don't exist.