A few whiskers short of the full kitty!

As usual I am sitting in the kitchen while I blog this. I have just let the cats out. We have two, sisters, which we took to look after for a couple of weeks a few years ago. As you will recognise they never did go back to their owner, a colleague of the lovely G who was recovering from divorce or something and had moved into temporary rented accomodation for a few weeks while he looked for something better. I can't remember now what happened but he moved office or something and never got in touch. Whatever. The "Girls" as we call them settled in very easily and we grew to see them as ours very quickly - we were getting over the fact that our cat had died {old age} recently.

Jess and Bailey are very alike, white with some brown markings. Jess' main distinguishing feature is that she has a smudge on her chin and is smaller than Bailey who to be honest is a greedy guts. They are more recognisable by their behaviours. Bailey as becomes a cat who has just scoffed for Scotland and won is usually very sedate and when she goes out she is usually back at the door in less than ten minutes looking for some more food and a cosy corner. She is quite affectionate and loves a good petting session and to snuggle up with me on the couch. She is definitely MY cat and she knows she can twist me around her little claw. She loves to go out after a good meal and waddle around the garden for a while pretending to the local birds that she is a lethal hunter on the prowl when actually, although she does have some ability in that direction, she is much more likely to be just sitting in front of the hedge and watching the birds come and go. More an aid to digestion than anything else. One of her favourite tricks is to come back after a visit to the garden and do an enormous crap in the litter tray which I have just cleaned out.

As I speak she is sitting at the patio door practising her Jedi mind tricks on me, trying to convince me through the glass that I did not feed her an hour ago and that I should let her in so she can rub around my trouser leg while mewling pitifully until I cave in and feed her for the first time in weeks thank you very much.

Jess on the other hand is G's cat and will usually only deign to darken my door if G is absent from the household or she has just had a scolding or something and feels she needs to get in my good books. Of course also if G isn't around I can provide and fairly adequate cat massage although clearly not in the same league as G. And so, I am suffered and allowed to approach and scratch the ears or the back. Jess is a few whiskers short of being the full kitty if you catch my drift and there are times when you look at her that you can see the lights on but nobody is in or that she is going to kick off on one of her daft half hours shortly where she will tear about the house and bounce off the furniture {if she gets a chance that is} G will often cradle her in her arms like a baby while sitting in the lounge and Jess will sit there contendedly hour after hour while staring gently at me to remind me that although I get to go to bed with G at the end of the evening thats just so I can warm the bed and that I should never NEVER forget that G clearly knows who comes first and its not you mate!!!

Bailey as I said is always around and will come racing across like a rocket from the other side of the garden when I whistle. As she weighs a bit its advisable to look out carefully for this phenomenon and keep feet, legs and assorted other bits of human anatomy well out of the way until she comes to a halt and reverses back towards you to find out why the utility room door isn't open and food piled meaningfully up in bowls already.

Jess is a house cat. Not something she has actually signed up for mind you, just that she disappeared for 5 days the last time she was officially let out. There have been a couple of escapes since then, which of course I am totally to blame for { so I 'm told } but I wont go into that just now in case G ever reads this and I get pounded!. We bought a cat harness and one of those extending leads and G will occasionally take her out and drag her, sometimes almost literally around the garden. Over time though Jess has got used to this set up and now I can take her out to the garden and using the extending lead tie her safely to one of the apple trees and she has learned that she:

A} is safe

B} can't get away even if she wants to.

C} still can get to most of the interesting bits of the garden nearby

This has brought an new equilibrium to our relationship as she now recognises that I am at home every day and have control over whether she gets out or not and, being a smart little kitty, she will now quite happy suck up to me for garden access rights as long as its not raining or too windy and therefore she can get to many interesting little bits of the garden. She can also play "untangle me" by crawling up and around through the branches of aforementioned apple tree and jumping down on the other side before walking back around and lying down facing the patio doors where I most often am sitting as I still need to keep an eye on her. { I WILL die if she gets away from me again and she knows it the bugger that she is} Once she sees that I have noticed, she will do that appealing little cat roll onto her back so her head is upside down and she looks as cute as possible and as innocent as sin. Little sod!

So, thats a thumbnail sketch of "The Girls".

Must go now. I have a cat to feed, a litter tray to empty and I'm on untangling duty in 10 mins.

Thank goodness we don't have kids as well......

see you later......................

listening to John Barrys' theme to "Somewhere in time".