House Rules - Only Six Cats!!!!!!!

The trouble with our Mum is that she’s a soft touch. We say this in a loving way because she’s gorgeous really. 

 But whenever a neighbour says they are going on holiday and looks at her with big sad puppy dog eyes and then asks the damning question: ‘who will look after our kitten/cat while we’re away?’ Mum falls for it everytime.

Before we know it, the bathroom is being prepared for the visitor and all valuables on shelves are removed out of paws’ reach in all the other rooms so that no harm befalls the visitor or the valuables.

Recently, we had a very pretty little tortoiseshell kitten as a paying guest for a week, while her Dad and family went to Wales for their holiday. The fact that she was cute and pretty didn’t detract from the fact that we’re a household of six men (excluding our Mum of course!) and we feel, in the great scheme of things, that girls have no place in the Daily Mews Mansion. It’s not that we’re sexist, before you start writing irate emails berating our attitudes – it’s just that girls tend to cause problems, and this one was no exception. And one more cat can upset the group dynamics causing lots of problems.

Although she was eight months old, Moggy was a tiny little kitten and very feisty as most female kittens are. Mum allowed her the run of the kitchen and dining room with the door to the lobby area and garden closed all the time, and the dining room to the hallway and beyond closed all the time too.

This was a pain in the derriere for us because we like to come and go as we please and now we had to stand at either door and wait to be let in or out. Sometimes – just for a joke – we kept going in and out without any purpose – and we think Mum got a tad miffed with us.

Moggy’s visit coincided with the hottest week in June for centuries of weather record keeping or something useless that people keep records about.  We were hot indoors and we were hot outdoors so we couldn’t make up our minds whether to be in or out. Most of the time we spread ourselves out under various bushes and shrubs that grow in our garden to try and keep our cool while Mum melted and made puddles indoors keeping Moggy company.

We didn’t want to eat anything either because we were too hot, but this worried Mum no end as she thought it was because of Moggy. We let her think that it was to try and drive our point home so that she won’t get any more cats or kittens in future.

One of the things we didn’t like about Moggy was that everytime we walked through OUR dining room to OUR kitchen, she would jump out on us – giving us all heart attacks – and then having the temerity to fluff up her tail like an enormous toilet brush in a bid to scare us. Considering she was like an ant compared to an elephant in terms of the size difference, it didn’t deter her from attacking us.

By the last few days of her stay with us she decided that we were all right after all and wanted to be friends but we had all had enough of being startled out of our whiskers and wanted nothing to do with her. Sam (who wanted to remain anonymous because he was embarrassed) was so frightened of Moggy that he walked around the edge of the dining room on two claws in as skinny a pose as he could manage to avoid her! And Sam is the BIGGEST of all of us! (big Wuss – comment by Ollie!)

On the last day of her visit, some men came and took down our fence because it was old and falling down – which was great for getting into the neighbour’s garden – and they put up a new fence. Moggy had to stay in the front room all day because the men needed to have the kitchen door open so they could run something called their ‘electrics’ from the socket. Mum put her bed, food, water, toys and scratching post in with her and she spent a lot of time on the back of the sofa, looking out of the window (Moggy, we mean, not Mum!)

Poor Garfield who is like a great, great, great, great grandfather wanted peace and quiet when he went to his favourite water bowl in the front room – but what happened! You’ve guessed it! She jumped out on him. Garfield turned around and he hissed his meanest hiss and she jumped back behind the television, just peering out round the corner to keep an eye on him. He gave Mum a look as if to say: ‘when will you EVER learn? Kittens and us old guys just don’t mix!’

Later that day, Moggy’s Dad came to collect her and she didn’t want to go – she kept looking at Mum because she didn’t know whether to stay or whether to go back to her Dad. But she did go home (we were all in the other room praying hard that she wouldn’t stay) and our home settled down to normal after that. It even started to rain and thunder just to make things more purrfect!

SIGNED:

Garfield, Billy, Timmy, Sam, Ricky and Ollie

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