Queen Cat

It is early.

We are at granny’s house.

The cat has spent large parts of the early hours of the morning breaking into the childrens’ bedrooms and prowling around, annoying the crap out of them.  If she has decided it is time to get up, she will not be swayed.  If you do not get up with her when she sits on your chest and affectionately chews your ear lobe/pats your cheek with her paw/shouts down your ear, she just moves to the next bed along and starts again until someone caves in.  In extremis, when she is being thoroughly ignored she will tunnel into the bed and bite toes.  This really hurts, despite the fact that she looks angelic and just claims that she has only given you a friendly nip.  When you are awake but ignoring her, she will chew the corners of your book, eat your newspaper or stick her arse in your face, whichever works best.  She’s very flexible regarding ways to aggravate the crap out of you.

The children are easy targets when it comes to getting people up, as they’re not particularly fond of bed at the best of times, and it doesn’t take much to convince them it’s time to get up and trip the light fantastic.  This morning she was roaming around Tallulah’s duvet, hrrmphing and squeaking and nosing at her chin with her furry face.  Consequently we were all up at the crack of dawn, which is why I now have time to blog.

The cat is becoming increasingly demanding.  It is like living with the furry version of J.Lo. 

She used to be my cat, back in the bad old days.  I got her and her sister when they were tiny bundles of fur, and trained them to be party animals.  Whenever my boyfriend and I went anywhere for longer than a few hours, we bundled them into the car with us, and they came along.  They learned to be very phlegmatic and adaptable.  They liked all night parties, curry and killing bits of moss.

Since moving in with granny and grandad (about fifteen years ago), and losing her sibling and step cats, she has become the Queen.  She rules this house with a rod of iron.

She is fed nine hundred times a day, tiny, delicious (if you are a cat) morsels of this and that, served on individual tea plates with a garnish.  She has her own glass of water by my parents bed, although she will drink out of anyone else’s if they put it down long enough. 

She is coddled and feted and generally carried round on a palanquin being fed peeled shrew morsels by hand.

It is not good for her.  She is a menace.

She shouts and commands and insists, and breaks into every room if you try to shut her out.  She absolutely hates being left out of anything.  This morning she had breakfast with the children, and then her own breakfast.  She came upstairs with us when it was time to get dressed. She helped Oscar put his pants on, stared quizzically at his socks, climbed into the bed while we were trying to make it, and then hared off to get the best spot in the bathroom so she could assist with brushing teeth and hair.  While the children were brushing their hair, she sat delicately on the mat and washed her fur until it was time for the next job to be done.

All the time this happens, she talks.  She is an incredibly talkative cat.  She has an entire and complex repertoire of noises.  She chirrups and trills, grumbles and shouts, ALL THE TIME.  She also likes a good conversation.  She does not just indulge in crazy old lady cat monologues, no.  She is good at dialogue.  We ask her a question, she answers it.  If you are talking about something and she has an opinion, she interjects.

You are never alone with the cat.

Although she is no longer a car type cat, she still likes the thrill of going out, and gets very excited when the kids bustle about putting their coats and shoes on.  When they are ready at the front door, she lines up with them.  If you do not stop her, she then comes out, herds them into the car and then endlessly circles it, which is absolutely lethal if you are trying to actually drive anywhere, rather than just all sitting there in state. 

It is too late to change her now. She is seventeen years old, which for a cat means that she should have received several telegrams from the Queen by now.  She is only going to get worse.

I await the day I turn up to mum and dad’s house to find her buttering toast at the table, while mum and dad crawl about on the floor eating small pouches of indefinable meat products out of saucers.

In the meantime I need to get the children in the car and to school without her assistance.  I think I will have to send her upstairs to aggravate grandad into waking up as a diversionary measure.

I expect many of you will have seen this before, but if you haven’t, and you want an idea of what the cat is really like, you should check out Simon’s Cat. I think he may have a later sibling of our cat in his care.  This all looks scarily familiar:

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