Oh, people, what a time of things I’ve had here since I last put paw to keyboard.  I’ve been so busy supervising that I’m completely exhausted and in need of a lie down in a darkened room with a piece of limp lettuce draped across my face.

First of all, Dad came over and took down the pergola.  This is the very pergola that Ollie, and all the other great Daily Mewsers who were here before me, used to shimmy up and survey their cat-doms.  It was leaning to the left and he said it was dangerous.  Clive, the cat who lives next door, uses it to climb down into our garden when Mum puts food out for him and he may (or may not) have contributed to the leaning side of things.

Casey and Gibbs supervising new deckingAnyway, so first the pergola went.  That opened up the garden so that Gibbs and I could see everything all at once.  Then while I was asleep upstairs on the sofa bed here in this office, and Gibbs had gone out on his travels till lunchtime, Dad came back and took up most of the lower decking.  When Gibbs returned for lunch, he could hardly believe his whiskers.  He was very agitated I can tell you.  But it did give us the wonderful opportunity to have a look under the existing decking and hide from Mum.  We did giggle to ourselves when she called and called us and we didn’t answer her. 

Then Mum and Dad had a long stick thing with numbers on it which they used to measure up how much replacement decking they needed.  There was a lot of mumblings and mutterings until they were happy with the numbers.  A few days later, Dad came back with a lot of new wood.  Have you ever smelled new wood? It has a really nice smell to it and Gibbs and I sat on it and just lifted our noses to the wind.

Anyway, Gibbs is far too much of a scaredy-cat to stick around when Dad gets his power tools out so he’d dash off out of the catflap for the rest of the day.  I watched the proceedings from the pile of new wood that got less and less as Dad used each plank.  I walked up to each new piece of wood that he’d place where the old decking was and I’d touch it with my paw – just to make sure it was safe for Mum to walk on.  We didn’t want her falling through, did we, although that might have been something hilarious to share with Gibbs on his return. 

Casey on the new decking with fuchsiasAll this Quality Control and Building Regulations stuff is hard work and very taxing on the brain.  I had to lie down and sleep for absolutely hours after Dad left each day.  All that supervising to make sure he did it to my exact specifications – it was worth the effort I put in, I can tell you.  The new decking looks awesome and Mum’s put some new plants on it so it looks really pretty.  Already the bees have been visiting and buzzing their gratitude to Mum and me. 

Mum said it would be somewhere nice to sit out and do her reading or writing stuff during the warm summer months, but it’s colder today on 2nd July than it was back in May.  And it keeps raining.  Hasn’t anyone told the Great Cat in the Sky that the weather is supposed to change when summer arrives? Trouble is, the summer hasn’t really arrived yet and it doesn’t look as though Mum will be able to sit out and read or write on the new decking surrounded by the pretty plants and the buzzy bees anytime soon.

Till the next time,

Meow,  Casey   

A Cats Purr

"Cats make one of the most satisfying sounds in the world: they purr ...

A purring cat is a form of high praise, like a gold star on a test paper. It is reinforcement of something we would all like to believe about ourselves - that we are nice."

Roger A Caras