Return Routine

Sophie seems to pick up on when the return to the mainland is imminent. It's the laundry done the day before.  The vacuum comes out.  Projects are finished up and packed away.  Then the day we leave, the computer is packed up, the bed is stripped, bathroom and kitchen are scrubbed down.

The dead give-aways are packing up the car and bagging up the garbage to haul out.

Okay, and I'm sure she can detect my own reluctance to leave.  One last walk to the beach.  Taking in the bird feeders.

She never fights me to go into the cat carrier, but it doesn't seem to be her first choice of what to do.....at least not from the island.  (She's usually raring to go from the mainland.)

And on the drive to the ferry, once again I promise her that one day soon, we will be on the island permanently.  Just not today.....