We spent intervals of the morning tracing back Phil’s illness as well as we could, as he has a GP appointment this afternoon and tis best to be prepared. It would appear, after much analysis, that it all stems back to the appearance of Random Cat (aka The Stripy). There was certainly a lot of sneezing in the early days, but it seemed that Phil got accustomed to the cat and settled down.
Phil went to the ENT unit at the Royal Berkshire last Monday to have a buildup of earwax removed from his ear. The gentleman performing the task mentioned that there was evidence of a severe allergic reaction and he was wondering how Phil put up with it. So it seems likely that our stripy friend is to blame.
I’m not sure what we will do about this as The Stripy is so bonded to Phil that it would be heartbreaking to separate them, and I’d miss the tabby turnip. He’s such a loving, docile, timid, trusting, fearful bundle of silliness that it’s hard not to adore him. But Phil is in a terrible state and must get better.
We will have to work ultra-hard to keep the house spotless and vacuum the carpets and furniture every day. Possibly an ioniser may help too.
I suspect the hardest part will be trying to tell The Stripy that he can no longer snuzzle on the bed every night. He’s not going to understand that. Not that he understands very much anyway.

Some time ago, we were baffled as to why our cat was hunting and gathering squares of bread. Today brought revelations in the form of our neighbour. It is he that puts the squares of bread out for the birds. And Mogret has taken to making off with it.

He informs us that she drags the bread close to the shrubs in his garden and then attempts to pounce on birds that come down to eat the bread.

That’s not normal is it? Do cats set traps?

so far, a piece of bread, a dead baby blackbird and some kind of rodent (also pre-dead, thankfully). These are the presents of the last 24 hours. The last one arrived in the last 5 minutes.

The bread was amusing. We heard her do the victory blorp last night, and were worrying about what kind of animal she was going to present us with. So I switched the outside light on to have a look. She was crowing over a small white square. Closer inspection revealed that it was, in fact, a small white square of bread. We took that as a hint that she was hungry and put down some food.

This morning, a dead baby bird was noticed, on The Precious Rug. No sooner was this removed when she reappeared again, with some kind of rodent in her murdering mouth. It was too big to be a mouse, too small for a rat. I didn’t get a chance to count its toes, so uncertain if it was a shrew or not. It was dropped on the same square of The Precious Rug, that she’d dropped the bird on. Damnable creature!

I’ve been idly perusing the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and am slightly concerned by one of the provisions:

Duty of person responsible for animal to ensure welfare
(1) A person commits an offence if he does not take such steps as are reasonable in
all the circumstances to ensure that the needs of an animal for which he is
responsible are met to the extent required by good practice.
(2) For the purposes of this Act, an animal’s needs shall be taken to include—
(a) its need for a suitable environment,
(b) its need for a suitable diet,
(c) its need to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns,
(d) any need it has to be housed with, or apart from, other animals, and
(e) its need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

This concerns me, not because I want to mistreat my cats (although that’s not what *they* say when the Wrong Food has been provided..), but because I’m concerned about part C.

Does this mean that you can no longer keep a cat totally indoors, as that’s hardly normal behaviour for a cat, and what about the fact I put a Liberator collar on her to stop her eating every single baby blackbird she can find? That’s cramping her style somewhat.

While most of the provisions of the Act are long overdue, and much needed, I’m a bit concerned that this puts a little too much power in the paws of my cat. There is insufficient detail as to what constitutes ‘normal’ behaviour. I’ve been careful not to leave the information up on screen in case she sees it and there will be no discussion about it in this house, but I’m worried a neighbour might let slip and then she will be unstoppable. “Yes it’s normal for me to be driving your car, get out of my way puny human.”

Three years ago today, we were in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. Getting married. Time sure has flown past..

To celebrate the recurrance of this date, I decided to make philb breakfast in bed. As his breakfast of choice is Weetabix™, this wasn’t too much of an effort..

Breakfast for philb

Also on this day (this year), the Mogret device performed the funniest operation to date. It should be noted that she has climbed in the washing machine before. Today, she climbed in and managed to start the drum revolving, so there was a brief session of hamster-like scrambling in the washing machine before she leaped out in horror and embarrassment. I laughed. Hard. She panic-washed and then exited through the cat flap.

I bought a pink wig on eBay. As you do.

Me

Philb

And finally, our cat, Mogret

Ouch!,
originally uploaded by Purplekitten.

Random Cat has had large thorn item removed from his eye, and personal items removed from his person. It seemed to make sense to get it done while he was having a general anyway for the eye-debris-problem. I have large amounts of cat-guilt though as he just thought he was going to have his eye sorted out, but we just can’t have a full tom about the place, Mogret would pack her bags…

Oh boy. The ’soothing music’ approach failed. From about 21:30 last night Random Cat yelled and yelled and yelled and yelled and yelled. When we went to bed he was still yelling, and didn’t show any signs of stopping. If anything, the cries were increasingly frantic.

Eventually I got out of bed and curled up on the floor next to him in his room. Immediate purrs and then silence. He lay next to me and slept.

So, we got some sleep, but I’m now full of I-slept-on-the-floor-to-comfort-a-cat aches.

I feel so guilty that this poor cat is so unhappy about being trapped in our house. If there was another way, I’m sure we’d do it, but he’s got to have eyedrops four times daily and we normally only see him once or twice a day, if that. Plus he’s got to be here to go back for the operation to remove the grass seed, and sometimes we don’t see him for days.

So, sorry Random Cat but it will be over soon.

After a tense and miow-filled night, I sought to discover some method of calming our anxious house-guest.

Earlier today, if you visited his room, he would be assessing escape potential and looking wary. I’ve been playing romantic classical music at him for a few hours now and he’s currently in a state of placid acceptance. It is now possible to go in and out of the room without causing more than a happy purr.

Whether or not this is due to the large amounts of Rachmaninoff I’ve been pouring into his lug-holes, I shall probably never know, as he could just be calming down of his own accord. Mogret is also calmed by music, although we discovered that her taste is a little unusual. She finds Mr Scruff particularly soothing (as we spotted while redecorating the lounge) and seems to have a penchant for trance and techno. Personally I think that’s just her attempt to ingratiate herself to the maker of such music (my husband). She’s smart enough to know how people work.

On the subject of manipulating foolish humans, she executed the sneakiest move yet this morning: she moved into Random House, the kennel we had built for our current house-guest to give him some shelter if he persisted in being afraid of Indoors. She sat in there looking reproachfully back at the house, as if to say “he’s in my house, I suppose I’ll have to live here now”. Evil, evil cat. She knows just how to make me feel guilty.