Kittens and things

I'm about to enter assessment hell again - 70 essays (not written by my students) on texts they've chosen themselves. But I managed to fit in a visit to a friend first... and her kittens.

Very cute.

These are not my slender legs.

Unfortunately.

A couple of thoughts from the essays:

1. "Stanhope was a hypochondriac with many imaginative illnesses."

(Yes, I've come heard about some imaginative illnesses in my time from students who haven't been in class.)

2. [Quoting from a poem]: "The deck piled high with bodies - this doesn't sound like a very pretty picture."

(Well, no.)

The great escape

The catlets were allowed outside yesterday. They were very nervous – Sirius was actually trembling, though did venture out, taking little trips further and further from the door. He eventually became extremely excited and dashed enthusiastically around. By contrast, Cassie took a long time to put even a paw out and then kept withdrawing it. In the end, however, even she went outside for a short time. It had been raining, though, and everything was a bit wet so they keep getting damp feet.

The four of us – Daughter 2, Son, my husband and I – hovered around like anxious parents all the time they were outside. Eventually it got too much for our nerves and we ushered them inside again.

My husband has installed a catflap in the door from the kitchen to the garden – though we haven’t introduced the kits to this yet. I really, really don’t want to come home from work to find a scene of devastation featuring little furry or feathery corpses so we’ve equipped the twins with collars adorned with bells in the hope of warning off the local wildlife. I wonder if the bells will work. (I hear hollow laugher echoing round Blogland.)

As well as the bells, the collars have magnets to unlock the catflap magnetically when the catlets approach. Or that’s the idea.

We’ve been accustoming them to the collars for a few weeks, on and off, but once the magnets were added, a couple of problems immediately arose.

1) The bells stick to the magnets; the rattly bits inside the bells stick to the magnetised side of the bells; and the bells become silent. We solved this one, though, by putting the bells and the magnets on opposite sides of the buckles. Cunning, eh?

2a) If a cat walks too close to the fridge, freezer, washing machine or tumble drier, there’s a dull “clonk” and the feline finds itself attached to the appliance: a furry little fridge magnet. Sirius has established that a firm, manly yank will disengage him while Cassie simply collapses on her side in the opposite direction and frees herself that way.

2b) When they curl fluffily up together, they tend to become attached at the neck. They can unlink themselves by pulling firmly apart, but this needs a certain amount of coordination which isn’t necessarily one of their talents.

Don’t say I don’t bring you thrills and laughter from the Life household’s weekend.

There are other things in our lives beside cats. I just can’t recall them at the moment.

Later, Daughter 2 and the cats needed a nap to recover from the excitement. Napping is a talent that the three of them share.

A message in Cat

Cassie likes sitting on our son's laptop. This is so helpful when he's trying to work.

I was just reading your comments on my previous post and she jumped up on the desk and walked across my keyboard.

And her message appeared in the comment box.

So this is what she says to you all, dear friends:

#]677777777777.

Can any of you more experienced cat owners translate this for us?

Trees

Above, you see a picture of a tree.

Now look at this picture. Do you see any trees? Well, yes, there's a picture of a tree, or at least half a picture, and there's a plant, a crassula, just visible to the left; but do you see any actual trees?

No, you probably see an archway which leads from the front part of our hall to the back part.

Here's a view from the opposite direction. You may see a kitten's ball there, but does the archway look like a tree to you?

It looks like a tree to Sirius.

Here's Sirius. He's ignoring his scratching post, and just about to mistake the archway for a tree. I haven't got a picture of him climbing it, because when he does, I'm busy shouting at him rather than taking photos. But he's very good at climbing it - two legs on each side of the arch. The arch has textured paper on it - now rather shredded textured paper.

When we shout at him in such circumstances, he looks round ("What? You don't want me to climb this tree? Oh dear!") and slides down.

This doesn't really improve the shredded-paper situation.

It's really hard, at least with my not-very-terrific camera, to take nice pictures of black cats. They either turn out looking a confusing mix of undifferentiated kitten parts...

... or look rather sleek and evil. As above. Note variety of rugs which we vaguely hope may protect our new sofas a bit longer.

Actually, the terrible twins are sweet and fluffy. Most of the time. Next week, we're going to let them outside. Maybe the advent of real trees in their lives will limit the damage on our wallpaper. Do you think?

(In answer to your question, Meggie, the book group member who cooked the first meal did have a (fairly new) wife but I think he mainly cooked the dinner. Mind you, he's since left the group - no one really knows why. Maybe his wife rebelled... she wasn't in the group.)

Slightly lesser kittens

Scene: Daughter 2's bedroom first thing this morning. Daughter 2 and I are sitting on her bed in our pyjamas, having a chat.

Son wanders in, also in pyjamas, having just come downstairs from his room.

Me: What are you eating?

Son: A chocolate.

Me: Before breakfast?

Son: Oh, you know. It's an aperitif.

Daughter 2 [nodding approvingly]: An amuse-bouche.

(Education, you know. It' s a wonderful thing.)

(You'll be glad to know that the kittens are now home and have recovered from their nasty experiences at the vet's. )

Hello, Molly Bawn

Well, Molly, I really enjoyed the post about meeting your husband - very much an "Awww" story. But then I tried to say "Awww" to you and realised that you'd changed your blog. I clicked on your little envelope and was asked for my name (I know that), my email address (yup, I remember that one too) ... and then your email address. Um. That's harder.

Presumably there's some step I'm missing. Can you enlighten me?

Our kittens are going to be neutered on Friday. Oh dear! This means that they won't get their supper on Thursday evening OR their breakfast on Friday morning. And they're cats who enjoy getting their little fluffy noses into their Felix kitten food.

And in this foodless state, they're going to get stuffed into cat baskets and taken to the vet's. They're going to be thrilled.

I was stressing about this to our son today. "Never mind," he comforted me. "We're just going to be cruel to be... " he paused, clearly trying to make the best of it - and failing - "... cruel."

Entertaining and vaccinating

It’s been quite busy week. College started back on Monday. Fortunately we don’t have any students to teach yet – they’re still applying and enrolling – but we’ve just moved to a new office with half the number of filing cabinets and no shelves instead of lots of shelves. So there has been much unpacking of resources and much attempting to rationalise these and arrange them into less space than before. It’s quite hard to make folders smaller.

Last term, we were allowed some choice as to which room we would like for this new office. We chose one with a nicer outlook than our old one, but the crucial thing was that it was rather bigger. It was four windows wide instead of three windows wide plus an alcove. It’s unusual for things to get better rather than worse in the world of the public sector, so we were all excited about this extra space and made great plans for it. Then one day we passed the room that was to be ours, and workmen were stripping it out… and building a new wall which cut the room down to three-window width. So it’s actually smaller than our previous one.

It would have been quite funny if it hadn’t been so annoying.

At home, we’ve had Daughter 2’s aspiring-actor boyfriend staying for some weeks (he lives down south) while he rehearsed for the play he’s now performing in during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. (This is more or less the only work, or as I tend to think of it “work”, he’s done this year – and I mean work of any variety, not just acting. Don’t get me started on this subject. Hmm.) Anyway, he’s been occupying our only spare room, Daughter 1’s former bedroom. Then last Friday, five of Daughter 2’s friends arrived to stay (two boys in Daughter 2’s room, which has one of those pull-out beds under the bed) while the three girls plus Daughter 2 slept, sleepover-style, on mattresses in the sitting room.

The friends departed on Sunday and then on Monday, aspiring-actor boyfriend’s parents arrived for a few days, to see Edinburgh and his play. They slept in Daughter 2’s room while she camped on her brother’s floor. Then, to add to the complications, my niece came on Tuesday to stay till Friday – yesterday. She actually slept at my mother’s, but was around here quite a bit. On Thursday, aspiring-actor boyfriend’s parents departed, and since it was my niece’s last night in Edinburgh, we had my mother and my aunt down to a meal.

So, while this has all been quite fun, I haven’t exactly been idle, which explains why I haven’t been doing a lot of blog activity.

This morning we took Cassie and Sirius to have their second injections. We don’t yet possess a cat-carrying basket, but when I took them for the first injections, I just put them in a slightly see-through plastic crate with a lid that folds down in two halves. No great problem. This time, husband was around to help, so we got a kitten each and put them into the crate. Or at least, that was the idea. We actually picked up a kitten each and these took one look at the crate and suddenly turned into squirming furry dervishes with fourteen legs between them, each of these legs kicking out in a different direction and not at all conducive to going into a box. No sooner had one kitten been crammed into the box and the lid slammed shut, than we had to retrieve the other one from behind a sofa (not an easy task – they move fast) and then we had to open the lid again to insert the second, whereupon the first shot out faster than the speed of light and zoomed into some other inaccessible corner. I had no idea they were so strong. I thought they were little fluffy toy-type things, not steely-muscled warriors armed with a thousand tiny, sharp claws.

At last we managed to force Sirius into the box when Cassie was already in it, and fell back, exhausted and sweating. Then we looked triumphantly through the sides of the box to savour our victory. One kitten only. We were amazed. We were so sure that, during our incarceration of Sirius, Cassie couldn’t possibly have escaped. We were there! We would have seen her! But we looked sideways, and there she was in the kitchen, poised for further flight.

We won eventually and the deed was done. The strange thing was that, at the vet’s, they behaved like little fluffy angels. You want to extract one kitten for the vet to stick a nasty needle into him? Certainly. I’ll just sit here in this box. You want to put him back in while the same happens to me? No problem. Now I should go back in the box? Of course. Home again, they went calmly to sleep. Husband and I drank coffee from quivering mugs and wondered if a sedative would help the next time. For us, I mean.

A few events from my morning

I had some friends for coffee this morning. Before they arrived, my little furry cannonballs and I had our usual sort of playtime. Would you like to see some of the things we did? First look at the picture above and then the other pictures.

How did that happen?

All in one piece.

Not even chipped.

Who? Us?


Some time later...

The tiger creeps along the tree-branch...

And back again.

Still, it certainly beats working.

From a well-wisher

Dear Isabelle,

I’ve read in your blog that your son is trying to persuade you to get a kitten. I feel as if I’m your friend, having read your blog for some time now, so I feel I should warn you: don’t!

Kittens are very cute, but they’re basically mini-tigers. This means that they like to climb. They will climb: bookcases, sofas, shelving units, stairs (and banisters), walls (or at least try to), curtains, ironing boards, lab coats, your husband’s suits when he’s trying to press them, your husband when he’s trying to press his suits – the list is endless. They walk along tables, window sills, chests of drawers and worksurfaces, including the cooker hob.

They try to eat plants, fish oil capsules (these burst satisfactorily and make nice greasy slidey bits on the kitchen floor), cereal from bowls left unwarily on tables and, from time to time, they'll do their best to eat each other. Once you let them outside they will no doubt try to consume the local wildlife (though not the slugs and snails that you have in copious and unwanted amounts in the garden). They will make no attempt to eat worming tablets or the expensive new food you’ve just bought them. They have little sharp claws which they like to keep that way, which means that your wooden furniture, your upholstered furniture and your wallpaper are just as attractive for this purpose as the scratching post you will buy them.

So remember: your son loves you whether you buy him kittens or not. Be strong! Resist his blandishments!

With best wishes,

A Fellow-Blogger

Spot the kitten

Dear Fellow-Blogger (and I’ve noticed that many bloggers are cat-slaves – I’m sure there’s a sociological study to be done there),

Thank you so much for the helpful, and entirely correct, email that you sent me some weeks ago. Unfortunately, by some strange and unaccountable glich in cyberspace, your email didn’t reach me until today. What a pity that no other cat-owning bloggers tried to convey to me the complete and horrible truth about this life-changing decision, because, believe it or not, we actually did get – not one kitten, but two! Yes, how stupid can anyone be?

They’re behaving exactly as you predicted. I was trying to tire them out this morning (wow, doesn’t this remind you of being the mother of a toddler?) by letting them run up and down the stairs while – in theory – I sat half-way up reading the paper. But you try concentrating on even the Sunday Times Review section when a kitten is tight-rope-walking along the top banister. He got to the end of the level bit and was then faced with an ornamental wooden acorn. He attempted to circumnavigate this, but the next bit of banister slopes down to the landing, so he decided against it. He then turned round – delicately maneouvering (stop changing my spelling, Word – I WANT to spell it that way; I’m British) his four little feet round in a circle – went back to the chest of drawers whence he’d started – and then did it again.

Anyone want to adopt a couple of kittens? I do wonder if I could harvest their energy in some ecological way to provide us with electricity. A little wheel, like a hamster, perhaps… Anyway, thanks for your helpful and well-meaning advice. Alas, too late!

Best wishes, Isabelle.

The message from Fellow Blogger isn't a real email, of course - it's the one you should all have sent me. Why didn't you? And to any of you considering kitten-acquistion: you have been warned.

Above is Daughter 2. She's very fond of our kittens. So am I, really. Most of the time. And I'm fantastically fond of her. She's such a darling. (As is Daughter 1, of course.)

Getting trained

The day that we got the kittens, we went up to the supermarket to buy equipment for them: a bed, a scratching post (so that they wouldn’t scratch the furniture – ha!), some toys, some dishes, a litter tray, some litter, some food…

We didn’t buy anything else, and the lady behind us in the queue noticed the exclusively feline nature of our purchases. She enquired about our cats, told us about hers and said as farewell, “Don’t worry. They’ll soon get you trained.”

Nonsense.

Training cats not to walk on tables - part 2:

a) Cassie and Sirius are now getting used to us waggling a finger at them in reprimand if they walk on a table, and therefore this is becoming less effective. (Well, it was never actually effective; but at least they noticed.) So we’ve moved on to waggling a finger and saying “No!”.

What they now do is to glance over their shoulders, like people in audience participation shows who’re being picked out by the host – “Who do you mean? Not me, surely?” - and, finding no other cat behind them, they gaze at us in innocent puzzlement and continue on their way.

b) Today they started climbing the dining room curtains. Very bad. But we were cunning. We hooked up the (floor length) curtains on to the table. So now there’s a nice soft bit of curtain on the table for the kittens to walk on, instead of nasty cold, slippery wood.

Oh yes, we’re getting these kittens trained.