Category: cats

It’s all very quiet in the house. For the first time since the before Christmas, there are no cats here. Both are at the veterinary surgery, undergoing their operations. I particularly did not enjoy signing the consent form – the paragraph about the owner understanding the risks inherent with the use of anaesthetic on animals does little to reassure, even when they are there for such routine surgery.

I’m just about to take the kittens’ food bowls away – they’re not allowed to eat after 8pm on the day before their operations. Monty is sitting on my lap at the moment, dozing. Treacle is asleep upstairs. And I still feel guilty about the whole thing.

At least when I call the vet, I get a real person on the end of the line who can give me direct and accurate answers to my questions – the result of which is that both kittens will be going in for surgery tomorrow and will emerge as slightly less cats than they are now.

In a rather disturbing development, our wonderfully cute little black kitten has suddenly turned into a sex-crazed vamp. H and I nipped out for a quiet (although not very good) meal at a nearby pub (not our local – serves us right for being disloyal) last night (one of the very few times we have been out for dinner on our own since we got married) and when we got home (not too late) we discovered Treacle rolling around on her back, purring and chirruping, generally behaving like a small feline tart.
Monty, meanwhile, clearly believed that Christmas and his birthday had all arrived at once. Somewhat hastily, we prepared a duplicate set of litter tray, food and water bowls and set them in the spare room, rapidly followed by a writhing and rather excitable small black kitten. Teenage pregnancy would be somewhat undesirable, we concluded.
Since then, both cats have been pacing about in the respective confines, meowing and pining for the other. Treacle has assaulted the door on her chamber a couple of times, thus far without success.
I will be on the phone to the vet first thing tomorrow, placing an order for two sets of neutering.

The kittens went to the vet this morning for a jab. £41 – hurts me more than them.
Monty is going back on Tuesday morning. I almost feel like a traitor to the gender by taking him there. Poor thing.
Still, when he is "done", he’ll be able to go outside! Yay!

As Hels put it before she left for work this morning, there is only one big news story today – the Invasion of the Tabby Cat.
As I was brushing my teeth before coming downstairs this morning, I could hear meowing coming from somewhere and thought that it was our neighbour’s cat outside (it certainly wasn’t Monty’s meow and Treacle isn’t terribly talkative). When I came down to the kitchen to give them their breakfast, I found two kittens hiding under the dresser and our neighbour’s very large tabby cat on the conservatory windowsill! He or she seemed more concerned with how to get out than anything else, so I opened the door and he scurried off. Monty and Treacle then set about sniffing everything in the conservatory to make sure that he had gone, whilst Hels and I cleared up the few things that had been knocked over.
Which leaves a mystery – how the hell did he get in? No windows or doors were open during the night. We have a catflap but it was and still is locked. I tried to force it but felt that it was more likely to break than yield, and I couldn’t see how such a big cat could get through it without forcing it open. Perhaps there is some secret cat portal that we have yet to discover in this house.
Either way, Monty and Treacle don’t seem too bothered by their ordeal. Monty has resumed birdwatching duties from the windowsill and Treacle is chewing my slippers.

I’ve been trying an old trick in an attempt to persuade the kittens not to wreck the houseplants. Each time they start playing with the leaves and damaging them, I dip my fingers into a jug of cold water that I have next to me and flick it over them. So far, I have a shredded palm and a wet floor – plus two damp kittens who don’t give a stuff. Suggestions?