
This tale is true. It concerns events which took place on 12th September 2004 and which we learned more about in September 2005.
We were most of the way through our annual holiday in Belgium, this time staying in Brugge. On the morning of Sunday 12th September 2004, we were getting up early to go and meet some fellow aviation enthusiasts for a day of watching the aircraft at Brussels. We had an early start, and in the bathroom I noticed a tabby cat staring through the window. We knew the hotel had a cat, and, as we had not yet seen the cat, we assumed it must be the tabby.
We opened the window, which led onto a flat roof, and the cat jumped into the room. It was a friendly cat, and rubbed round our legs and tried to sit on our knees. But we had to get ready for our trip, and so we caught the cat and put it back through the window onto the flat roof.
Very shortly after, I heard the cat scratching the bedroom door to be let back in! This was weird, as the cat would have to climb down from the roof, get into the hotel, up the stairs and to the right door to the room it had just been in. There was not enough time passed for the cat to make its way down in this way.
We had an early breakfast, and the cat followed us to the breakfast room. No one else was around. The cat walked along the tables and the mantelpiece, and licked out the empty butter cartons. When we left to go for our trip, the cat was standing up at the glass door watching us go. That was the last we saw of the cat on that holiday.
In September 2005, we returned to the same hotel. On one evening, we saw a black and white cat, and asked the hotel owner if they had a new cat as well as the tabby. He then told us there was no tabby, there never had been a tabby in the hotel and the only tabby he knew of was the existing cat's brother, which was dead! It was weird that a cat which had did not live in the hotel, had never been seen at the hotel before or since, knew its way round the place so precisely.
As an afterthought, we acquired our own cat in December 2004. One of the first things I thought about this cat was how it reminded me of the one we saw that murky morning at the hotel and when we went back to the hotel I would take a photo of the tabby to compare them both. Now I know why I couldn't!