the furry ones

The cat is sleeping on my arms, which is making typing this post very very difficult indeed. He hasn't done this since he was a kitten, which just shows how much our holiday has affected him.

I decided that a cattery wasn't a good solution for Toby while we were away in Sydney over christmas because I didn't like the idea of him cooped up in a cage, so I paid the vet's receptionist to come and take care of him every morning for two weeks. I also asked a friend of mine if she'd pop in during the evening and lock him in the house.

This seemed to work fine until the second week, when he decided to start using my sofas as a toilet. That's always popular.

We arrived home to find the cat sitter in the process of cleaning the sofa covers. Strangely, she decided to put them in the compost caddies. I'd never have thought a base sofa cover would fit in the council provided caddy, but apparently they do. This is the point where I start to appreciate the fact that my mother in law probably licked them clean before she left the house.

Just to explain - the girls and I flew out a week earlier than Mr Boxer Shorts, and he got his mother to clean the house for him before he left. 

He's an only child. Explains much.

I hugged her. Jet lag does that to you. Hugging strange people who you've paid to do stuff for you is never a good idea. (We're talking about the cat sitter here, not my mother in law. Not that I don't hug my mother in law of course.) Like the time I told the fishman I loved him. Wow, that was a strange day. Even worse that my husband was in earshot. La la la.

So anyway. I hastened her out the door. Actually, she ran out the door. See, I knew hugging her was a mistake. She did mention that Toby didn't eat a lot. And that she thought he was suffering from stress. That was before she ran out the door of course.

I went back to the kitchen to start clearing up. Toby's bowl was full of food. And I mean full. To the brim. I only ever give him a handful of food at a time, but he had enough for about 2 weeks, or 7 cats. Whichever comes first. No wonder she thought he didn't eat much. Although, with the cat flap on both in and out, there should have been at least 4 of them helping themselves. Which apparently there wasn't. Maybe her perfume was a bit over powering?

Still, she was right about the eating. He didn't eat at all the day we got home. I tried him with both dried food and sachets. No joy.

I went upstairs and found two little yellow patches of wee, and one poo on the carpet. Maybe it's a good thing he's not eating right now, since what goes in, must come out.

Normally I lock him in the house at about 11pm, but the day we got home I was in bed before nine - so that's when he was locked in. I told the girls in the morning that they needed to watch where they put their feet, since there might be some horrible little presents left lying about.

Thankfully, there were none. None that we've found, anyway.

Toby didn't eat any breakfast that morning, so I started to worry. I pumped him up with some pro kolin that I had in the cupboard, and he happily licked it off his nose. Well, he probably wasn't happy about me smearing crap on him in the first place, but he licked it off anyway.

Instead of going out, he stayed in all day, hanging around wondering if we were about to disappear again.

Later that evening, Toby finally began eating a bit. No much, but a little.

And now he's lying on my arms, which has really slowed down the whole typing process.

The only reason I am typing this is because I need to stay awake a bit longer. Last night I was passed out at about 8pm. Right now it's 9.30pm, so anything beyond this is a great achievment. And I've just finished off the bottle of wine single handedly, since my ever loving hubby passed out just before the girls did.

So there you have it. Jet lag. It causes people to guzzle red wine and blog gibberish about  how much their cats missed them while they were on holiday.

Given the choice, Toby would eat a mouse over his dried catfood anyday. He'd choose the mouse over his sachet's of beef and peas too. Which piques the question, why doesn't cat food come in mouse flavour?

The day started with screaming this morning. I had to investigate like the partially good mother that I am, and partly because I could hear jamie screaming "Toby's got a [gibberish]". I assumed the missing portion of that sentence was mouse, and I don't relish the job of cleaning mouse guts off our carpet - which is sort of reminiscent of mouse guts in the first place.

The missing word turned out to be not mouse, but butterfly, and I don't think I have ever seen jamie quite so devastated at something. She was quite beside herself with panic and sobbing uncontrollably - running away and hiding in the back room so she didn't have to see.

Toby, the miscreant, was under the table trying to get a good grip on his flapping morsel. I was surprised to see flapping - I was expecting a pair of wings stuck on his nose like sideburns. I grabbed him around the middle and yanked him out from under there smartly, then tried to console jamie.

Trying to comfort a child whilst holding a fully armed whirling claw machine stuck in full throttle isn't easy, so I got a large tupperware container and placed it over the butterfly, then handed the cat off to Molly. Who wasn't able to hold on to him, but by then it didn't matter.

After sliding a piece of paper under the container, I was able to lift up the butterfly safely inside. The wings were very torn, and I didn't see how it would fly again. We took it outside and collected some leaves and flowers, then I placed them into the container, and tipped the butterfly in. It actually tried to fly. Unfortunately I could see the full wingspan, and there was less than half a wing on the top of one side.

After explaining to the still distraught jamie that the butterfly will probably die, but it least it's going to die in a happy and pretty place, we put the container onto the top rack of the greenhouse shelves. It's still there now, and still alive. It's pouring with rain as well, but there is a cover over the shelves.

I googled a bit and found some comments by a researcher specifically talking about monarch butterflys who has been amazed to find some of his subjects still flying with less than half a wing. That gives hope! I'll keep an eye on this little guy and see if he flies away or just passes away.

The cat is feeling a bit fragile today. He's padding about in slow motion so that every movement reminds you that he's delicate. He's really milking the whole fragile thing though - and a more appropriate attitude would be one of humble embarrassment. But he's a cat, and that would be an impossible combination.

The reason for his delicate sighs and "oh poor me" glances is because earlier this morning we had to rescue him. Rescuing him involved me shedding quite a lot of blood and ending up looking like I had scratching posts for arms. He wasn't up a tree or anything almost as grand - no, he had his head stuck in a watering can.

I have three watering cans in anodised metal. A big pink one, a medium sized blue one, and a tiny yellow (actually, I nicked that one from the girls fun garden set!). It's like the three bears of watering cans. Toby finds the water in his bowl to tasteless to bother with, and prefers instead to drink out of the large watering can. I don't think he'd ever tried the medium sized one until this morning.

He was very lucky that daughter number 2 spotted him, as when she called out to me we were about to leave the house for school. I didn't actually believe that he was stuck when she said it, and expected him to trot away after having a drink. But that's not the sight that greeted me!

He was with all four paws up under the can's top, trying to wedge it off his head, and while he did this he also thrashed from side to side, making bonks and dongs alternately.

I rushed out and got him, carried him inside trying to avoid all clawage, and got a towel around him. However it wasn't a towel, it was a terry towelling nappy, so it got his front paws but left the back ones out. He managed to make claw marks up to my elbows! He was panicking, and making a low scared meowly growl. P had arrived by that time, summoned from shaving by daughter number 2, who was in floods of tears now, and not particularly helpful.

We managed to contain the claws and press him down on the floor, holding the watering can steady. Then I stroked his fur behind his ears, pulling the skin gently with each stroke. One ear popped out, but the other one was still wedged and he was trying to push his head back in. I was very worried that I might be pressing into his neck and interfering with his breathing. He was still meowling however. I kept on at the other ear, and just when I thought I wasn't making any difference I felt the folded skin of the ear flap coming under the edge of the tin, and then it was out. And very suddenly, so was he.

The watering can had not been empty, so a very bedraggled head was now peering at us. There wasn't fury, it was abating fear. He wasn't 100% sure that I was innocent of his predicament, but he became calm again and no longer struggled.

I am very glad it turned out this way though, because I hate to think what the alternative would have been! I could just see me carrying him into the vet's office - if it came to that he'd have been in a terrible state by then.

The medium sized watering can is now on a high shelf, pending a full investigation (into some kind of guard or net over the hole!). And I have assured myself that the small one poses no threat. Not to his head, at least. And I think that he should cut out the fragile act. One look at the bandaids up my forearms tells you who REALLY bears the scars of this misadventure!

The great thing about cats is the fact that they keep the mouse population down. Which in our house - with a history of 18 mice caught and released into the local park (plus one brutally murdered in a traditional trap, to my eternal horror) - is a good thing.

The horrible thing about cats is the fact that they play with the mouse that they've caught long after it ceases to be potential food.

Two days running I've had to remove a sodden cold carcass from Toby that he was playing with delightedly in the back yard. Despite being totally beyond all chance of revival, Toby was tossing the mouse in the air and diving on it, before dashing away and then leaping back onto it.



The first mouse he brought into the house - that was horrid. It was very dead and very cold - I had doubts that he'd even been responsible for its death! And he was very miffed and confused when I removed it and binned it.

The next thing he brought into the house was a dead pigeon. That was more than foul because it was so much bigger!

Fortunately, I am now forced to keep the catflap on out only, as the neighbourhood cats (ginger, blackie, tortie and ollie) all treat the catflap as the door to free food. Ginger has even been up on my kitchen bench to find the food when I removed it from the floor. I think I've mentioned this before! So the upshot is that this also stops Toby from bringing his dead into the house to smear all over my furniture. With our carpet being the eye searing horror that it is (persian) I'd have stepped on a dead mouse before I saw it, and the result of that would be a motherload of swear words, whether the girls were in hearing range or not!

The good news is that we've seen no live mice in the house this year.

I have a furring bundle of purr climbing over me! He's also got catfood breath, which is pretty rank having just snacked on a sachet of kitten food.

The girls are upset because he likes me and not them so far. They both fail to realise that they move at 100 miles an hour, where I just stay put and talk gently to him. Plus I sung to him all the way home in the car.

He's in the back room and I am sitting on the sofa chair with the laptop. He was in here by himself for a while, since the sheets suggest giving him alone time on the first day. But he sat by the glass french doors and watched us and meowed. So now I am in here just sitting, and he's climbing around my neck and chest with his sharp little unretractable claws and his motor running overtime.

He purrs so much! We got a letter from the foster carer about his personality and early days. It was lovely to read how confident he is, and know what his eating habits are, since that helps me work out what to feed him. Kitten diarregah is a disgusting thought. Plus the fact that he's already litter trained. (phew!)

Molly has just come in and sat down to read a book. After a few seconds Toby went over and sat beside her. Then he climbed on her lap, and now he's standing on her book. She's delighted!

I've just taken some photos, and I'll add them later on.

I was trying to dismantle the rockery the other day, rock by rock. It's not so much a rockery, as a slag heap dumped when they built the conservatory. It has an amazing collection of plants in it though. Throughout the whole year different things kept coming up almost like a flower lottery.

But I got quite a surprise when I pulled up one rock, and saw a scaly body beneath. I poked it, and out came a snake like creature. But the tail was different. It was rounded. Although I'd never seen one before, I knew it was a slow worm. I wasn't quite brave enough to pick it up, even knowing that.

It slithered into the ivy, and was gone. But I managed to get both girls to have a look. Now I know that it's living in there, I am slightly concerned about the slug pellets. It's like a death camp in my backyard since I put them down. But they were totally destroying everything prior to that. I now have my bucket of death - salty water that I drop them in - just in case they are not totally dead.

I don't think that the slow worm would benefit from either pelleted or salty slugs!

I found a cat foraging in the ivy the next day, and I chased him off in case it was looking for the slow worm. Then later another one - but after he fled I noticed that a tiny house mouse shivering on the ground. It was weeny. I popped it into a container and we took it up to the park. There's quite a party of them living there now - he's the number 13th mouse we've released into the park. Although this is the first I've caught outside the house. All others were inside.