New Skills and Ricky is Disgusting ...

Friday, 2^nd April

Tonight, I was out when Mum gave the others their dinner and kissed them all before she went to bed, and as I wanted to see her, I decided desperate measures were the order of the day – or in this case – the night.

So I climbed up to the roof and cried at the window. Eventually she came and her face was all sleepy and her hair was sticking up – she looked really funny, not like the Mum I see during the day.

Anyway, while she was closing the window, I went straight into her bedroom and lay down on the corner of the bed. I thought, I’d start as I mean to go on – no pussyfooting about asking if it’s all right if I sleep on her bed – just do the deed and let her get used to it.

She made a nest for me with the fleecy sheepskin cover thingy that she puts on top of her quilt every day. We all like sleeping on that because it’s cosy and cuddly so I was more than happy to have a nice bed made up out of it which she put on the corner where I was getting ready for sleep.

Then about 5.45am I needed to go out but I had to wake Mum up so that I could go downstairs. Her hair was really weird by now and her face had one eye closed and one eye open – I think that meant she was half asleep, I don’t know – but she did look odd! I’m not sure I want to sleep next to someone who looks like that when they wake up! 

Saturday, 10^th April

Mum caught Ricky doing something disgusting today. Mum thought it was disgusting – we didn’t. I thought he was pretty brilliant, to be honest. Mum has these two enormous plant tubs which she put a lot of blue flowers in sometime before Christmas. But when it rained, the water came up to the top of the tubs and the flowers were going all funny and droopy.

Mum dug the flowers out and put them in other containers and they weren’t wiggly or droopy anymore – they grew strong and lovely. Anyway, the two tubs remained full of the earthy stuff and the water stayed there too, right up to the top of the tubs, sometimes overflowing if there was a lot of rain.

Ricky likes living on the edge – so with that in mind, he climbed up onto one the tubs, balancing his back paws on the edge of it, and put his front paws on the edge of the other tub – it was amazing to watch him – because he does have an abundance of bellybits - but he looked so graceful.

The reason Mum was disgusted was because over the months that the water hadn’t managed to drain away, a green filmy stuff had almost covered both tubs but Ricky still DRANK the water out of the tubs. Mum felt sick! Goodness knows what it did to Ricky’s inside bellybits!

The tubs were really heavy but Mum dragged them onto the garden and tipped the earthy stuff out. Ricky was really disappointed – he loved balancing on the tubs, so Mum got him a special drinking dish for him – which she has placed on a couple of broken bricks. The great thing about this dish is that it is purrfect for Garfie to drink out of without his neck hurting him. In fact, we ALL drink out off it – it’s totally cool, and we’ve seen other cats from the neighbourhood also come and drink from it – although if Sam’s out there when they try and come in to the garden, he chases after them, hissing his head off. 

Thursday, 14^th April

Showed off my ‘drinking out of a glass’ skill tonight.  I was sitting on the dining table, having just eaten my dinner, and was considering where I wanted to go to sleep – on the table, the tower or on one of the donut beds on the floor, when Mum put a glass of cold water on the table.

Thinking that drinking water out of a glass was the latest thing for me to learn how to do, without further ado, I drank from it. Mum was something called ‘stupefied’ as she had apparently put it there to take up to bed with her.

So she took the glass, poured the water on the pot plants on the kitchen window cill and refilled it with more cold water. And then she put the glass on the table. So I drank from it again! 

Mum took the glass, tipped the water down the sink and refilled it and then left it on the worktop in the kitchen while she bent down to each of us to kiss us good night. When she got to me she smiled that smile she has where her eyes crinkle and she gave me a big hug – so I can tell I passed the drinking water out of a glass test! 

Wednesday, 21^st April

We’ve been having some nice sunny days and Garfield likes to go out on Mum’s sun lounger. We were given a kennel thingy a while back which we’re allowed to go in if we want to, and she puts the lounger out for him next to the kennel thingy, so that if it gets too hot for Garfie he can go in there and cool down a bit too.

It’s pretty neat – we’ve all been inside it although not altogether – and if it suddenly starts to rain too, while you’re outside, you can pop in there and not have to go indoors.

Monday, 26^th April

Billy AND Garfield had to go to see Kevin the vet today. Billy was leaking red stuff all over the place wherever he sat or lay down, and when he walked he limped and held his paw up in the air so he kind of wobblyhobbled on 3 legs.

Mum bathed his paw, which had two bite marks on it, and you could see his anklebone through one of the bite marks. It just kept leaking red stuff but Mum didn’t seem to mind and Billy didn’t mind her bathing it either.

Kevin said that Garfield had a horrible lumpy type thingy in his mouth which was causing him a lot of distress – but you know, it doesn’t seem to matter how much Garfield hurts, he never shows it. Charlie used to be all grumpy when he wasn’t well which was Mum’s clue that he needed to see Kevin because Charlie was ‘acting out of character’ but Garfie never shows that he’s in pain so Mum has to be extra watchful.

Both of them have got some pink tablets called ‘antibiotics’ which they have to take for a while. Billy really loves his and eats them off Mum’s hand, but despite having the sneaky pill pockets, which Mollie sent us from California, plus some that Kevin gave Mum before, Garfie refused to eat the tablets. Now Mum has to throw them down his throat and hold his mouth closed, stroking his throat until she’s sure the tablet has gone. Although she has to be careful because when she left the room, Garfield spat the tablet out on the sofa and Mum found it later. 

Friday, 30^th April

Mum’s gone into a tail spin because something called the BBC rang her up this afternoon and said they wanted to come and see Garfield doing his ‘guess which hand it’s in’ trick. They also said that if any of us had tricks that we could do, we could show them as well. I thought I’d do my ‘opening the fridge’ trick, followed by my ‘drinking water out of a glass’ trick and perhaps for the grand finale, I could show them my ‘Tom Cruise’ trick where I get myself up on to the roof.

Suddenly the curtains were taken down in the lounge and the windows were cleaned, the paintwork was washed, and the dead vase thingy was primped up ready. The covers that sometimes live on the sofas were brought out and smoothed into place and the cushions plumped up. The pile of videos were bundled into a cupboard out of site and the wooden floor swept and dusted. It did look nice, I have to say, and Garfield thought so too, when he came in to snooze on the sofa while we were all watching telly that night.

Then just when you least expected it – Garfield threw up – all over the sofa, the cushions, the nice clean cover, his bed – every where. Shedloads of it! Mum was astonished at the amount of sick that came out of him – and kept coming out – and when he had done as much as he could all over the sofa so he went down on the floor and did a few piles there. It was awesome! 

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