Treacle's diary. Extracts from the blog of a feline secret agent.
| Sunday 25 May. 15.00-17.00 hours | |
| Bone idle | |
| Cats are clean. My job demands that I look suave and superior at all times. In fact I would go so far as to claim that looking suave and superior is, to a large extent, my job. So imagine my anguish and indignation when I got up from an afternoon snoozing on the window sill and discovered that one entire flank was covered with a thick layer of dust. Junior female staff was cleaning this room just the other day. I know because at the time I was lying under the coffee table with all four legs in the air in what we feline professionals call the 'vulture bait' position. At the time I thought she did not disturb me there out of consideration, but taking the undusted window sill into account, I realize that it was just idleness. And he's just as bad. I've sat on the sofa for hours on a Saturday afternoon watching him staring at that flickering box, and only stirring now and again to get himself a beer and the occasional snack for me. The other day I saw him give up weeding the herbaceous border after half an hour, claiming the sun was too hot. Now I'm sorry, but I was sunbathing on the wall right next to him, and I know for a fact that the sun was just moderately warm. Just yesterday afternoon I found that I had fallen asleep whilst doing a stake-out on the garage roof. As this evidently meant that I was seriously undernourished, I went indoors to refuel. Do you know, it took a solid minute of nagging before that idle woman stopped cooking her own supper and fed me? This despite my exhaustion being so extreme that I went on to the end of the bed upstairs and slept for the rest of the evening. I'm going to have to be stricter with the staff. I can't stand laziness. | |
| Wendesday 22 May. 6.00-8.00 hours | |
| Debugger | |
What's this? Why have I, a creature well known for my fondness for the finer things of life, demanded to be let out into the chilly pre-dawn air - and on a Sunday morning at that? It's because I'm being bugged. The little swine almost certainly climbed into my fur as I was hunting in the long grass by the bridge last week, and no amount of scratching has managed to dislodge them. Well there's more than one way to purify a cat's skin. I relax and enjoy the sunrise, and the sensation of goosebumps elevating my fur. That's about cold enough I estimate. Time to get one of the junior staff out of bed to let me in. Few minutes later, as I suspected, now he's up male staff is making the tea. I trot past him and up the stairs to the bedroom. 'Isn't it sweet?' female staff says a few minutes later. 'Treacle rushed in here and plopped right in the part of the bed where you were lying.' Sweet indeed. I can feel the slight tickle as the fleas abandon my icy hide for the cuddly human warmth of the bed. These are cat fleas, and can't really thrive on human blood. But everyone will have a lot of fun whilst they discover this. I'm fortunate that they are not really very intelligent. The fleas, I mean. | |
| Sunday 12 May. 4.00-4.30 hours | |
| Falling for you | |
| Part of my job is to supervise and protect the junior staff. This is not without its hazards, as will be seen. It's 4 a.m. and all through the house, several creatures are stirring, though not, in fact, a mouse. (I disembowelled the last of these sneaky little infiltrators a month ago, and Darwinism has taught the survivors that HQ is not a safe place to be.) No, female staff is stirring because she is quietly seething that male staff got back at 1 am smelling very strongly of beer (Old Woolsack peculiar, my nose informs me, with an underlying tequila bouquet.) Probably the latter has given male staff the pounding head and queasy stomach that has him seeking medicaments from the downstairs kitchen drawer. Naturally, as is my duty, I precede him downstairs to ensure that all is well. Aha! Movement? Some dirty rat trying to sneak in through the window? Has another bat got in? Frozen into invisibility on the staircase, I shiver with anticipation (the last bat was such fun...) and stare intently at the moving shadow. False alarm. Just the wind moving shadows from the streetlight. Instinct and superb reflexes shoot me upstairs just as a heavy clod-hopping foot descends on my neck. I pause two steps up and watch with interest as male staff takes the final flight of steps on shoulder, backside, ribs, and ..shoulder? Ah, no, chin. Thanks to my lightning reactions, no harm was done. Hair mussed mildly, and dignity slightly wounded, but trivial stuff really. Basically I'm fine. Still, junior staff might have checked me over before they took him to casualty. I wonder if they'll treat his hangover whilst he's there? | |
| Saturday 13 April. 19.00 - 21.00 hours. | |
| Les laisons dangermouse | |
| By and large I'm a sociable cat- which in feline terms means that I am prepared to admit that under certain circumstances other cats might be allowed to share the planet with me as long as they keep to the less desirable bits. Being of an outdoor disposition, I am on nodding (or hissing) terms with most of the local felines. Recently I've been hanging out in the waste ground by the old Co-op store with a lean and well-scarred bundle of fur called, insofar as he has a name, Thatdamnferaltomsbeenatthebinbagsagain. He may have ears the size of a rabbit and, judging by his tail, a streak of squirrel in his ancestry, but by gum, this thug is some mouser. We work as a sort of team - he bags 'em, I tag em. I know that this cat does this for a living, but it's a pleasure to work with a master. Anyway, this evening, I came sliding under the fence as usual, and received that deep thundery growl that means 'back away!'. Naturally, this encouraged my curiosity, so I popped the rest of the way through. I was mildly surprised to see Thatdamnferaltomsbeenatthebinbagsagain engaged in carnal congress with La Contessa Wysyiwg III, the highly bred, rosette-winning Siamese princess from Poplar Drive. Only mildly surprised, because La Contessa has recently been expressing an urge to make whoopee at volumes that can be heard several blocks away. However, I thought her humans had her well under lock and key. Still, it's hard to keep a cat indoors if it doesn't want to be there. La Contessa's people will be pleased. Humans love kittens. | |
| Munday 1 April. 10.00-10.30 hours | |
| Hanging out with the chicks | |
| As I dangle from the branch by one paw, I consider my options. Option A. Retract claws, and allow myself to drop. Not a perfect choice as I am currently some 15 feet in the air, and looking down at the roses bushes directly below me. Option B. Yowl loudly for help. This will in due course produce junior staff and a ladder, but I am not sure that my pride can take it. Option C. Hang on indefinitely. The best idea that I have come up with so far, but not really a long-term option. Apart from considerations of eventual starvation etc, my grip can only last so long until option A ceases to be optional. I'll be the first to admit that this operation has not gone perfectly to plan. I took a benevolent interest in the young couple courting in the poplar tree on the edge of the garden. I watched approvingly as they built their cute little nest in its welcoming branches. Eventually I heard the welcome tweeting which signified that new life had been brought into the world. Then I shimmied up the tree to eat it. The nest is in a fork of a long bendy branch. I had got far enough along it to see the little nestlings, blindly and trustingly opening their little mouths. I was reaching out a paw for the greediest, on the basis that this would probably be the fattest, when something hit me on the back of the head. It wasn't hard, but very distracting. Hence my predicament. Not helped by the fact that mother bird is still about, sqawking and dive bombing me. I twist violently in another attempt to get my back legs on to the branch when there is another unexpected blow on my haunches. What the ...? The branch suddenly gets a lot smaller and a feeling of weightlessness briefly takes over. Just before I instinctively twist to hit the roses feet first, I see that father bird has arrived. | |
