My son’s cats are fairly self sufficient, despite the sad way they whine at me every two hours in the hope of me filling their bowls. All their feeding gear is in the utility room where I feed them. It’s on the counter top above the washing machine. Cleo always gets up on top of the washing machine, walking up and down and frequently actually stands in the bowl I am trying to fill. This is not very hygienic, you should not stand on your dinner plate, though perhaps if you wash your feet by licking them it doesn’t matter. Sometimes when I pass through the utility room on my way to the dustbin, I find her sitting hopefully on top of the washing machine trying to magic food out of the air.
Her faith in washing machine magic seems largely to have supplanted their self sufficiency when they first arrived and were likely to bring in anything at all edible among the smaller wildlife from the gardens around. However, if we are too long away at my mother’s, despite the fact that they will have had two breakfasts before we set off, and have dry food always available, old ways are likely to reassert themselves.
Goldfish, we are told, have a two second memory, cats are not too far out in front. They eat from each other’s bowls at the drop of a fork going: Oh look! Here’s a bowl of food and look here’s another bowl of food. Food fights are frequent. The other problem of the two second memory is that they bring things in to eat and then forget them.
So, when I saw Russell staring with great interest at a doll’s house, I had a nasty suspicion. After a while he forgot what he was interested in and wandered off. Then Cleo started hooking the furniture out of the house with a paw. Then she wandered off. Here she is a moment later, having forgotten all about the furniture, heading off to sit on the washing machine.
After a while she wandered back and draped herself over the arm of the settee.
She looks as if she has forgotten something but can’t remember what, just that it was over there, near that tin box thing you can put your paw in.
What you can also see in there is a box that the furniture was dragged out of and a little grey shape.
Yes it was a mouse. A little wood mouse, who ran in the traditional way when I dropped the box in the traditional way and screamed. In the traditional way. Anyone would think I had never kept a mouse in my life. (Many, at school and at home.)
Chasing the mouse round the hall was an activity enjoyed by both cats as a spectator sport, they’re going to be in such trouble at the next pay and performance review.
Happily the mouse escaped into the garden.
Cleo went back to sitting on the arm of the settee, looking alert and helpful until she fell asleep.
She has in her time brought back cake, bread and once, a whole Yorkshire pudding with gravy on it. Next time we get back from my mother’s I’m going to try sending her out for the takeaway, it’s amazing what you can get with chips.
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JaneLaverick.com – fast food, slow cats.
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