Thursday 16 October 2008

A Big Softee!

I dunno! What is it about animals? They get under your skin (literally in some cases!). Since getting Austin, I've become a big softee. I've had cats before, but don't remember being quite so gooey about them. Maybe it's because I'm at home much more now, or perhaps it's knowing that I'm well past child-bearing age and have discovered my inner mother rather too late? Whatever!

Anyway I took the little fella to the vets yesterday for his second and last feline leukemia vaccination. Because he has rampant ginger-vitis the vet had said last time I was there that he wanted to do some tests to see if there was an underlying, more serious, cause. I decided that if he did have any of these horrible diseases (AIDS included) I really didn't want to know and it would be too late anyway. But no, the vet was quite determined. So I had to leave him there for a few hours as they needed to sedate him before sticking the needle in. Having been "on the road" for goodness knows how long before he was rescued, no one had a clue what he'd been up to or what manky infection he might have caught.

Now unlike the NHS the results are instantaneous. So when I returned to pick him up, I also got the results. Negative. Yippee! Still don't know why he's got the problems with his gums, but hey, he's managed ok so far. Just a little aside here. I have decided that in future I will book myself into the vets when I need medical attention. The staff are friendly, the place is spotless and the results immediate. And you get your own cage with clean bedding. Ok so if you've got a problem with heights, it might cause some grief climbing up if you're allocated a penthouse cage, but nothing's perfect in this life is it! Of course having read James Herriot I'm well aware of what vets get up to with their soapy arms! Let's please not go there.

Anyway I digress. Austin was still out for the count when I picked him up, so there wasn't the usual pushmepullyou strife with the carrier. Getting him in it has become the stuff of cartoons, all legs like a giraffe and talons. You get one leg in and one leg out, you shake it all about, do the hokey cokey and turn around and start all over again! Once in the car he sings along quite nicely to the Lighthouse Family, if a bit loud. (His taste in music is quite eclectic). However, there was none of that now. Got him home and plonked him on his bed where he stayed for about four hours. He had a slight accident, which we won't mention as he was rather embarrassed about it.

Once he started coming to, all he wanted was to cuddle up on the nearest lap (usually mine) and if I left him for a moment he hurled himself drunkenly around until he found me, falling on my feet until I picked him up again (this is a first, actually wanting to be picked up. Maybe I should keep him permanently sedated!). He seems much more like his old self this morning, except I think he's remembered what happened yesterday morning, so is keeping a wary eye on my movements. If I go within ten feet of the carrier, he's out the door like a rocket.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

The Green-eyed monster!

I know Austin loves his little buddy. No, he does, really. Except, well, there are signs. They can be playing together nicely. Bit of chasing around, some hide and seek, some gentle thwacking around the whiskers with a paw. This is when he thinks they can't be seen. As soon as Austin sees, hears, feels, my presence he morphs into the Terminator, or that bloke from Karate Kid, you know, when he makes like a crane before he does that kick thing!

Now
Tabby is a nice cat, there is no two ways about it. He's insinuated himself into the household very successfully. He's seen what Austin does that annoys and does the opposite, the little creep! So we can cuddle him when we want and he eats all the leftover food at which Austin has turned up his delicate nose. In fact I would say that he's probably of the lower classes despite his ravishing good looks and expensive looking coat. He eats like an uneducated peasant and tears up the furniture much more vigorously.

Anyway today he made the move from spare bed to master suite and slept the whole day away. Austin has his nose so far out of joint it's practically on top his head ;> Now every time I really want to annoy Austin, I make sure he's looking and then go and make a BIG fuss of Tabs. Works every time! Trouble is Austin gets used to having him around and then Tabs goes off on one of his four day expeditions into the interior and Austin has to revert to "playing" with me. I'm only his second reserve playmate and it can be quite a painful experience! There's a bit of chasing around, some hide and seek, some gentle thwacking around the whiskers with a paw! He does this "meyat" noise as he leaps out at me as I trudge wearily up the stairs. He biffs me through the bannister rails and then as I round the corner, four sets of claws and several teeth leave their marks quite artistically arranged on my calf! As I bend over to inspect the damage to my limb, he repeats the aesthetic claw and teeth motif, this time on my "buteaux". As I leap up clutching at my dignity, he assumes a totally bored expression and looks the other way.

Thursday 2 October 2008

Sitting on the fence!

Had to rescue Austin from the fence today. I heard this awful racket. Sounded like a hippo dancing the paso doble on an elephant! I opened the front door and stood looking out. Then I heard Austin's "I'm-in-a-heckuva-fix but-don't-want-you-to-find-out so-you-will-go-on-and-on-about-it-forever" meowaaaarghhoouw. Looking round the side of the house I espied one black tail, one white paw and a couple of whiskers sticking out from the middle of the slatted wooden fence. How he got himself in there I do not know? But it was a scruff of the neck jobby to get him out. Had to disentangle each body part one at a time! Boy was he embarrassed! The black cat from next-door-but-one was sniggering behind Mick and Pat's scaffolding.

I'm sure I saw Austin blush and his humiliation was evident as he slunk into the house, his street cred at an all time low. Serve him right. He'd not long chased that same black cat into the garden of four of the eleven spitting dogs.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

Girders and cat flaps!

I've been looking in here the last few days to see if, by perchance, anything new had been written on the blog. Totally fed up now with seeing "Bodgit and Scarper update" every time I enter boringoldblogland. Duh! It has now finally dawned (not being overly endowed in the brain cell department) that these things don't write themselves, more's the pity.

Since I've started writing this catachrestic masterpiece today, I've had to get up and let Austin out the door and in the window several times! Well he knows he's supposed to be the point of this blog and is eager to help me out by doing something interesting so I can write about it. Well Austin, try again! I see nothing remotely amusing about your door 'n window fetish. And another thing. What's all this about cod liver oil capsules? Don't I give you enough fish? Isn't Tesco's own brand dogfish shark and barracuda bites doing it for you? So why did I have to stick two fingers down your throat and rescue a 1000mg pill? Have to say though, you have the most luxurious coat of all the mogs in the neighbourhood :)

Re: Mick and Pat. Well we're now about two months on and progress is being made .... oh yes! Muffled banging and clanging reveals there are now several girders lying on the ground, one large hole in the wall and some more scaffolding balanced precariously on two bricks! Still no sign of the little pixies doing all this though. It's so exciting!! Maybe it's the tooth fairy on work experience, or those weird ones that are usually at the bottom of the garden? It all causes great amusement to the feline population, who cease their internecine squabbling to line up along the wall to indulge in the cat equivalent of watching paint dry!

There are some very strange sights around if only one would take the opportunity to look up now and again. We were having one of our not infrequent outings to Plas Newydd our local national trust property. It has to be one of my favourite places:>) We were ambling along around the back of the house, when senior neff pointed out a rather novel looking cat flap type thing in a window about twenty feet off the ground!

Now
I know the family of the Marquess was a bit eccentric (the first Marquess lost a leg at Waterloo which was careless, but it was found, according to leg-end buried under a tree in Brussels where it had become a bit of a shrine) but didn't know their cats were into abseiling! Anything, however, is possible! My mind, at this point, wandered off into Random Musings - where it spends so much of it's free time, being a happy haven, a place of boundless reflections - and I pondered the thinking behind abseiling cats. Maybe it's a novel way of getting them to sharpen their claws, so they don't chip the Chippendale or shred the Louis Quinze? Perhaps they are exceptionally tall cats? Or maybe the 1st Marquess's prosthesis prohibited him from hopping downstairs to let them in and out? After much deliberation I decided that the Marquess, being a bit of an innovator, probably designed it as a prototype combi catflap and air conditioning unit. He was well ahead of his time.