If your hands aren't generally too full, use a walking stick --
one that's nearly as tall as you are, so you carry it with your
hand almost shoulder height.  That may be enough to keep
Boyfriend at a little greater distance when he's following you
from in front, and if he does trip you, it could save you from a
fall.

[Apologies if this comes as a duplicate.  It never appeared on
my server.]

If your hands aren't generally too full, use a walking stick --
one that's nearly as tall as you are, so you carry it with your
hand almost shoulder height.  That may be enough to keep
Boyfriend at a little greater distance when he's following you
from in front, and if he does trip you, it could save you from a
fall.

Locating the cat is not a problem of mine. Don't need a powerful
flashlight too much. One of the great advantages of having a white cat
who does not like snow :)

But how do you get the cats to come in? If my cat wants to, she'll come
in on her own. About 1/4 the time, she'll not run away but will sort of
lounge or sit or lay down, so I carry her in. But a small percentage of
the time, she scoots away when I go to pick her up. I prefer to just
let her come in on her own. Is that what yours do when they see you
have found them?

I lost Ted's post in my flood removal program, so I will tag on here.  I
used to use a powerful flashlight, one of those rechargeable million
candlepower jobbies that light everything up for a mile.
There was one big problem with that, though.  I have a mega fox problem here
so I daren't wait until after dusk to close the popholes up.  This means the
fowls have only just retired for the night a few minutes before.
I have some amazingly bad-tempered roosters.  Some are fine, but some should
really be flavouring soup for bad attitude and would be if I wasn't so
stupidly softhearted.  I have a Speckled Sussex rooster that is 12lbs of
pure evil.  He attacks me at every opportunity and I have to use a mesh
shield held in front of me to replenish his food and water.  His name is
Attila.
What happens if I use a bright light to visit the chicken huts is that every
rooster with an attitude hurtles back out and asks me if I wanna fight ;-)
and won't go back inside ... and it is surprisingly painful when they strike
out like lightning with their spurs, it both cuts and bruises.

I use a small LED headlight to sneak down the garden but it casts a blue
light which is only just sufficient.  One of the problems that's been caused
by my eye surgery is that my eyes take ages to adapt going from light into
dark and vice versa.  It happens almost instantly in most people but is a
common side effect of the type of surgery that I had. I now have to use a
torch to look into a cupboard unless I want to stand there for 15 minutes.

It was so helpful that Boyfriend ran in front of me about six feet away with
his reflective collar, but this winding in and out of the legs that he's
just started to do is not good.

Tweed

Neither is a good choice, for many reasons. I'll send you an E-mail.