Catstats

“98% of all statistics are made up.  ~Author Unknown”

 

Just a few of our own:

37.5% of cats prefer sitting on their humans’ heads to sitting on their humans’ laps.

12.5% of cats will decide that one type of food, no matter how non-nutritious, is their favourite and will ask for it 100% of the time. In my household, this is split equally between tinned/ cooked mushrooms and asparagus.

12.5% of cats will form an er .. unnatural attachment to your smelly shoes and socks.

The most aloof cat in the house, known for allowing humans to scratch her head for an average of 37 seconds before trying to take their hand off, will, after you have explained carefully that she doesn’t sit in anyone’s lap, ever, will 7 months down the line decide one night to not only sit in your boyfriend’s lap, but cuddle him, nuzzle him, purr her head off and only try to take his hand off half-heartedly before settling down for a further 20 minutes of cuddles, rendering you a liar or a person who despite 14 years of living together, truly doesn’t know her cat. Also, y0ur phone will take pictures of this historic event but then refuse to download them to anything resembling a computer, 100% of the one time it happens.

87.5% of cats will prefer their water cool, except for one loon who insists on warm water. She then gets to drink it fresh and the others have to wait until it is cool. No getting away with two bowls either because she expects them both to be presented at the same time, sipping at one then the other before expressing a preference for the other.

50% of cats under 12 months of age will want to watch you bathe and will demand to smell all the stuff you are using, before you apply it, a type of feline sniff-tester. After 12 months of age, only 12.5% of cats will still enjoy the bath for non-drink related activities. Such activities will include wallowing in the suds left behind before jumping out to shake or rub themselves against you. Just as you finish drying.

12.5% of cats will want to eat your mobile phone charger. And printer cable. And modem cable. And land line telephone line. And nine months after you successfully protect all of those (new, I had to buy new, sometimes twice) cables (new-to-me landline was gifted by my neighbour) , and learn to hide your mobile chargers at all times (replaced personal one thrice, work one four times), 12.5% of cats will surprise the hell out of you by bringing out a length of cable that is none of the above and you will spend days searching for the appliance that no longer works because … (no, I haven’t found it yet).

75% of cats will, when visitors call round, walk calmly into the living room, sit down and wash their genitals, just as you are serving tea and cake. 50% of the 75% will not be able to wipe the smug little feline grins off their faces. 2% of the time, they will drool and manage to spatter your guest at the same time as they are abluting …

100% of the time that their food is cooking, 100% of cats will behave as if the last time you fed them was 1852.

Cats who like sitting in high places will, 90% of the time, not only surprise you with how high they can reach but also with how accurately they can flip things off the shelves they are sitting on and onto your head/ the TV/ their brothers and sisters. 10% of the time, they will surprise you with their ability to manoeuvre themselves around the objects without moving a single one. This includes lying down in the most awkward positions, just so they don’t knock anything off. Choosing between the two is completely random and I can’t put a statistic to it.

Average time between feeding and asking for the next meal for 12.5% of cats: 75 seconds. Amount of time they are able to keep up the pestering: to infinity; or as soon as you give up and feed them again, whichever comes first.

Average number of scratches sported by a mad cat lady (MCT) a week (excluding any cat rescues): 37. Average number of scratches sported by her partner: 22. Number of scratches on scratches sported by MCT at any given time: at least 14 (three of which are triples).

The number of clean litter trays in a house is directly proportionate to the number of poos done outside them.

24 hours after an intensive hoovering and litter tray scrubbing and cleaning, 20% of the litter will be outside the trays.

Average number of tail twitches given in a hunker-down position before pouncing on the object of their attention: 7

% of cats who prefer cardboard boxes to expensive cat toys: 100%. However this reduces to 85% when said toys contain catnip.

% of cats who enjoy ‘nip: 89%. % of cats who enjoy valerian: 100%

12.5% of cats will learn how to break into the kitchen whilst their noms is cooling. Another 12.5% will actually nick the noms whilst 25% will sit on the floor, waiting for the noms to come to them. It won’t, 100% of the time.

% of cats who will get in the way whilst you are collecting bowls pre-noms: 100%. It’s like they think tripping you up will speed things up …

Number of cats out of nine who understand the word “No!”: 8.  % of cats who will listen: 0%.

% of cats who will still adore you when you come home smelling of dog: 0%

% of cats who will see you walk IN the door with a cat carrier and assume it is Vettime: 89%. The one cat who won’t is too busy complaining about a distinct lack of food in his environment to even notice the carrier.

The number of cats who will, when you are running late for work, demand instant Outsides: 2. 1 will then decide that he isn’t sure, stand in the doorway, dither, make you even later for work before coming back inside, running upstairs to have a go at his sister. You will then come downstairs having sorted it all out to find him asking for Outsides again. 50% of the time, this is repeated at least twice.

% of the time the human is late for work and the cats are the reason: 82% (17% is down to buses being elusive and 1% is down to sleeping in).

% of the time I love my cats: 100%

But % of the time I wish they would cut me some slack, clean up after themselves and generally be better-behaved: roughly 10%, normally after viewing their efforts at redecorating the house after an epic clean.

 

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Where we go, chaos follows …

The plan was to meet at M’s at 10am on Monday morning.  I had the day off so ideal for making a trip up to town to see Compo.  Compo is currently residing at the Royal Marsden so it is not an easy trip from somewhere in darkest London.  Moreover, neither M nor I had been to the hospital before now.

Compo’s friend R had given H directions.  We go from our mainline station to Victoria, tube to High Street Kensington and then a quick walk.

The day was chilly but dry as I stepped out of the house this morning, a little late as Guin had a bad day yesterday and wasn’t eating much.  I made sure she had her fish and ate some biscuits and I got to M’s about 9.20am.

M had sensibly made coffee and she made me a much needed cup of tea.  We discussed what to take.  Compo wasn’t eating last we heard so food and treats were out.  We couldn’t take flowers.  H suggested we ring R, his friend.  R wasn’t a whole lot of help but agreed practical things were best.

We had a second cup of tea and poor H, who, like us, had memories of sitting by the bedside of terminally ill loved ones, was keen to go and get it over with.  I mentioned picking up something to eat along the way, M immediately made us rolls.

A little more time was spent discussing our memories of Compo.  The time he lost Tinker, what he said and what he did.  Other favourite memories of the shop crept in.  It turned into a mini-prewake as we went over old ground, forged in the love and care that that shop gave us all.

At last we gathered our courage together and walked to the bus stop, all three of us dreading this journey.  We found we had just missed a train so travelled one stop back to catch another, faster train.  As we neared Victoria, the heavens opened.  M and I chatted, as we always do, back and forth, with H chipping in.  There were comfortable silences, the ones you get amongst people with a long-shared history.  It was six and a half years since H had given up the booze and fags.  He looked 20 years younger and we told him so.

Getting to Victoria, I, occupied with the thought that I just had to Fucking Get This Done, marched ahead.  Called back by M, she reminded me that we wanted to go into Superdrug to get some essentials.  I led the way.  Working up in town in various places for 15 years has given me a sense of direction so good I could navigate around all the main stations with my eyes closed.

We trotted around Superdrug.  M wasn’t happy with what we found and engaged one of the shop staff.  Directed appropriately, we found the perfect bag and got what we wanted – wet wipes, man-sized tissues (R had explained that Compo had just run out of them the night before), a little deodorant, a deluxe sponge, lip balm, etc etc.

We then got on the Tube, M dallying a bit trying to check whether I was right, me initially not finding High Street Ken but remembering it was on the district line, on the way to Richmond, a remnant of all the late night tube journeys taken seemingly a lifetime ago, when I was young and life seemed so full of promise.

We got out at South Ken into the rain after a tube snafu, agreeing to catch a cab and thank heavens we did because the second glimmer of chaos was apparent when the sullen cab driver insisted it was in one street and we said we had been told another.  We went with the cabbie though and travelled exactly one and a half minutes before he stopped.  Had we gone to High Street Ken we would have been hopelessly lost.

H, a little disconcerted, scouted ahead to make sure we had the right place as M and I pretended to admire over-priced jewellery in a shop  window which had a very convenient awning that allowed us to have a smoke without the accompanying soggy.  The shop owner peered at us through the steamed-up glass but undeterred, we puffed away whilst pointing at the tat.  There were diamond elephants which were enough to keep us looking interested.

H then rang to say it was the right place, come on then, hurry up.  We got in, did appropriate loo breaks, I checked my phone to discover no coverage at all, we reconvened, found the lift, got in and looked for the fifth floor.

The wheels then fell off when there was no such thing.  H and I leapt out at the first floor, with the intention of asking directions.  M stayed behind, pressing the “lift open” button but it didn’t work and H and I watched in horror as the doors closed and took her god knows where.  Separated, in a strange place,  no mobile coverage and not sure of where we were going, I suggested we go back to the ground floor.  We obtained directions to the ward (which was in another part of the building and indeed on the fifth floor) H agreed and we jumped into the lift again.  M wasn’t there.

I thought a moment, realised that she would have a 30 second panic and then go back to the 1st floor.  I said to H to stay where he was, that I was going back to the 1st for exactly five minutes to wait and if M appeared on the ground floor, he was to grab her and either wait or come up to the first floor, depending on how much time had elapsed.  I caught his eye and we roared – only M and I could get separated in a fucking lift for pete’s sake!!

I trolled up to the first floor and stood there looking like a lost fart in a thunderstorm in the lift lobby.  Several lifts came and went, with me doing meerkat impressions into every one in the hope of seeing a blonde in a red coat.  Sadly, my Schindler’s list moment never came and four minutes later I pressed the button to meet H on the ground floor.  M wasn’t there.  I knew then.  The cow had been very sensible and simply gone to find Compo herself, trusting that her best friend wouldn’t be stupid enough to spend time lift hopping in the hope of finding her.

Er, yes … of course … eventually …

We got to the fifth floor.  I spent a minute or so locating the buzzer which was exactly where you would expect it not to be (behind you once you were standing in front of the door).  We were buzzed in and told second door on the right.  Second door on the right had a great big no entry sign with the words “wash your fucking hands, face and little bits with our disinfectant solution before you even think about coming in here” (okay it didn’t but it might as well have).  H opened the door as I was anointing and trying to stop him entering.

Multi-tasking is not my forte because as I was trying to apply disinfectant to my little bits, he went ahead and opened it anyway.  An “Ooops sorreee” followed as he backed out and said “not that one” as a nurse came running behind us to apologise for giving us duff info.

I am not sure what he saw because we were smartly directed to the door opposite and two completely thrown people (one still trying to find her little bits to apply appropriately) flew in the door and came face to face with our friend.  And Marion, here forward known as Ms Sensible.  Apart from when it comes to buses but that’s later in the story.

Compo, taking everything in his stride, explained that he wasn’t coming out again.  That everything was sorted out, that he intended to completely snafu our main road by planning a funeral that included a black coach and horses and he not only intended to snafu the main road but his route would include his own road and he made us giggle as he pictured the same coach and horses trying to turn in the cul de sac where he lived.

Two hours passed as if by magic, immersed in the past and the present and we eventually, as he tired, said our goodbyes.  There is nothing  more poignant than saying goodbye to someone you may not see again but his chipper demeanour, his flirting with the nurses (Royal Marsden is bloody wonderful, by the way, it doesn’t even smell like a hospital) and his eating (because he had just started again) gave us hope that we may well see him again.

Overcome by tears, I sniffled in a corner of the reception area whilst the other two took a bathroom break.  Yeah I know, I am a CAMEL – I can’t do public loos …

I got a hold of myself as M came back and we waited for H.  One of the staff was wielding a mop and M and I did the Oops sorry we’re stepping on your clean, wet floor dance before we decided to go out the security doors.  Stood outside, M was demonstrating how she had problems getting in (not dissimilar to mine) and explained that the nice young man who was sitting at the reception desk had let her in.

The same lovely young man was gesticulating at me through the glass, clearly asking whether we wanted to come back in, remembering both of our misguided attempts to enter.  I shook my head and mouthed that we were waiting for someone who was on a bathroom break.

Unfortunately, my hands moved of their own accord and before I knew it, they were mimicking a very rude action that made it look like the person we were waiting for was indulging in a spot of self-pleasure rather than a widdle.  As I was trying to mimic a fireman and his hose, this was a total surprise to me.

He looked at me completely horrified as I looked aghast at my hands, lost it and had to stand in front of the lift, my shoulders heaving.  Sharing my breakdown in communication with M, she too had to stand facing the lift before she went and banged her head in hysteria against the wall.

H came out, looked at us and asked the fateful question “are you both pissed?”  The wrong verb got us completely disconfabulated all over again.

Thankfully the lift arrived, sans people and we got into it, still roaring.  The rest of the journey home was taken up by me insisting that I knew where I was going, M missing us the bus by wanting to double-check, H caught between us, not sure where to go and rain, lots of rain.

Victoria station was heaving with people and condensation as we exited the bus and entreed into a coffee shop for warmth and tea and noms before wending our way home.

Except there was one last faux pas as we got on the bus.  Heading home in rush hour, the bus was rammed.  A very reluctant arseholeofreknownwhohadhisbagacrossaseat lovely young man eventually moved to make way for Marion.  He asked whether I wanted his seat too.  I said, no it was okay, I was happy swinging.  M corpsed as I tried to keep a straight face and failed.

I am not sure whether I could ever go to the Royal Marsden again without risking arrest or deep embarrassment, or both.  M is not sure that she can go anywhere without causing a scene.  H is probably only too glad the day is over.

But one thing is for sure … we did what we needed to do for Compo, we walked individual and collective journeys into the past and into pain, we took each others’ arms to gain courage to make those journeys and we stood together to embrace a future which will be minus one steadfast, courageous, funny man whose life has enriched so many of our feathered and furry friends.  Bless him and may his journey into the future and into the unknown be accompanied by the souls of so many he loved and looked after.

And please people, unless you want us to shock and awe your nursing staff, please don’t get terminally ill, okay?

Compo

We called him Compo.  His real name was Peter but as we already had one of those in the shop, we needed to differentiate him from the other, who was rapidly falling out of favour with us.  We knew he was retired and he had an air of “old man” or more accurately “old woman” about him – he was a chatterbox, would keep you talking for up to an hour or two at a time, in a busy shop, as luck would have it, normally at the busiest time.

He looked a bit like Compo from Last of the Summer Wine.  It was an affectionate nickname that stuck and we were very careful not to say it to his face.

He was small and slim and dressed casually, always neat and clean.  Over time I got to know him, got past the “oh my god its Compo again, here we go” and got to value him for the insight he had.  He never talked much about himself, just the animals.  He knew so much about wild creatures.

He had a cat and when his cat Tinker, went missing, I had a big printer and was pressed into service, printing posters and leaflets for him.  He went everywhere, talked to everyone and soon there were very few people in the neighbourhood who didn’t know about Tinker and didn’t know Peter.

Tinker had gone missing late one night.  Peter had got into the car at 2am, as was his nightly ritual, to feed the foxes on Clapham Common.  Tinker had sat in the driveway, watching him go and Peter had had an odd, nervous feeling.

Totally immune to bullshit, he passed it off as a fancy, and drove on.  His guilt when he got home and Tinker was not waiting for him, increased as it became clear that Tinker was nowhere to be found.  Tinker was, along with the wild animals he fed and cared for, his whole world and he grew morose at the possibility that his companion had come to harm.

He was approached in the supermarket whilst putting up fliers by a woman whose husband was a psychic.  Would he pay for a reading?  She was sure her husband could help.  A cynic by nature, Compo went anyway and was distraught to be told that Tinker had been abducted and was dead.

In emotional pain, he came back to the shop to tell us.  M and I refused to believe it.  Going out on a limb, we both said we were sure Tinker was alive.  Hearts in mouth, we both felt it but did not want to give him false hope.  We were sure the psychic was a charlatan.

Weeks passed and Compo worked methodically.  Two streets around his home became three, became four.  When he had put a flier up in every postbox within a mile radius of his home and posted on  lampposts in the same area at regular intervals, he started again.  Eight weeks went by and he lost hope, gained it in an instance and lost it again.  He went to every single callout and sometimes they came in at two or three a day.

He spared no effort whilst inwardly he grieved.  He asked us how to keep going when life seemed so empty without his Tinker.  We encouraged him, scared that we were continuing to feed his trauma when instead perhaps we should accept his cat was dead, but knowing that he would most likely top  himself if he gave up.

I had never seen someone work so hard to get their beloved pet back.

Every day he came into the shop and reported back.  He still kept up his routine of feeding the wildlife, the squirrels and the birds and the foxes.  Sometimes, his interactions with them were enough to keep him going.  Sometimes they were not and he got very down.

He kept referring back to the blasted psychic and by now, eight weeks along, M and I were wondering if we had got it wrong.  We had not been wrong before and this was not the time for us to be wrong now.  We worried and fretted about what to do.  We decided to remain  resolute.

Compo heartbreakingly said one day “I know my time is limited and I got my boy at the right time, as I know he will be my last cat and I didn’t want to leave a cat behind when I went.  He’s five now, nearly six, too late for me to get another.  I’ll never be able to replace him.”

The thought of Compo sitting for 10/ 15 years on his own spurred me on.  In the middle of wedding preparations, up to my ears in lists and drama and work I persuaded him to have one more go.  I sat up night after night printing flyers, thousands of them.

Tinker’s sweet little face stared up at me as I railed against my own limitations.  I did card readings, journeying, you name it, I tried it but nothing came through.

At the same time, M persuaded him to try one more thing.  She knew of someone who did readings from photographs, normally of rescue animals with behavioural problems, so new owners could have an insight into what had gone on and have a bit of help in trying to fix the past.

She had a rock solid reputation and when she couldn’t help, she said so.  M wondered if she could help.  Compo went for it and 15 quid was mailed to the lady, along with several photos of Tinker.

The reply came back – “your cat is alive, he is being looked after by a lovely lady about two miles from you.  I am not sure what happened, but he is quite far from you and I don’t think he got there on his own.”

She went on to describe the concrete wall around the house, its curve up a driveway and the exterior of the front of the house.  We redoubled our efforts, me printing like a demon and Compo spending his days putting fliers in the second mile radius around his home.  We waited and nothing happened.  He continued, pushing the boundaries just out of those two miles.

The calls started to come in again.  A lady called.  She had been looking after a cat for a few weeks.  The cat was in her garden and was timid and would not approach but would wolf down the food she set out for him/her.  She described the cat.  It sounded just like Tinker.  But so had all the other calls.

Compo had a feeling though.  She sounded nice.  He wondered.  He agreed to go round at the time she normally saw the cat.

He went off and got Tinker’s favourite treat – prawns from the supermarket.  He drove over to the house.

When he saw the concrete wall and the way it curved up into the driveway, he knew.  The lovely lady in the house said that she had not seen him yet.  She and Compo went out into the garden and Compo called him.  A very frightened bundle of fur came belting out of the bushes towards him and into his arms.  Tinker and Compo were reunited at last.

I went up to meet Tinker a few months after that.  Wedding over, and heartbreak already winging its way to me in the form of infidelity and my father’s death, I snuck some time to see him.  Compo made me tea and showed me his garden, with all his dead pets.  Everyone had a gravestone.  He said “I want to be buried here with them, you know.”

He had come out with food and whistled.  The next moment, we were surrounded by squirrels and birds, who knew what that whistle meant.  Like a latter day St Francis, Compo was in his element, caring for the animals he felt for so much.  I was amazed at the lack of timidity.  The squirrels and birds would not come near me, but they surrounded him and he chuckled.  I had not heard him laugh so freely before and we laughed together before I made my way home.

I saw Compo fairly often on the street after that.  He grew a beard, which took 10 years off him and in the summer he sported a tan, which made him look like a salty sea captain.  Ever active, he was still trotting up and down the hill to the supermarket.  In time, he persuaded the other Peter to give him one of his cats and Muffin joined Tinks, giving Compo a family of two.

Tinker then suffered from awful digestive problems and Compo was struggling to keep him healthy.  But over time, he got Tink’s diet right and he started to thrive again.

Compo could not thank M and I enough for our help and he remembered us every Christmas, right up until the last one.  We wondered about that but not for long because the other Peter, the one I mentioned at the start of this story, had died and Compo had gotten in touch.  I won’t go into the other much Peter here, suffice to say that Compo was everything Peter pretended to be and was not.

Peter’s cats were elderly and in bad shape and Compo was doing his best to rehome them.  With long-established links with every cat and wildlife sanctuary, he was still struggling.  We didn’t hear the end of the story however and were waiting for news.  Compo and his friend Ron were doing their best to clear Peter’s flat, not an easy job when the place was covered in cat excreta (I can, now that he is dead, explain that Peter was the cat collector I have referred to previously on this blog).

M and I declined to go to Peter’s funeral – we could not stand there and mourn someone who had caused such harm.

H called the other day.  Compo was in hospital.  He had no other news.  But he was in the Royal Marsden which was not a good sign.  M and I worried.  Ron was taking care of Compo’s cats in the short term.

H called back today.  For two years Compo’s doctor had told him he was suffering from indigestion, until he could not longer eat.  Instead he has inoperable stomach cancer.

When I hear stories like this, not the first or second or third or fourth time, I want to round up and shoot every single one of our local doctors.

He has no family we know of.  Ron was continuing to take care of the cats and had cleaned Peter’s flat up, waiting for him to come home.

Except Compo won’t be coming home.  In one of those awful fucking twists of fate, a good, good man is now lying, waiting for a hospice space, away from his beloved cats, knowing he is going to die.

The conversation we had all those years ago came back to me today – “Tinker was to be my last cat, so I didn’t leave any behind to face an uncertain future“.

Compo will know full well that his cats will be hard to home.  They are nearly 14 and around 8 now, with Tinker having special dietary needs.  I dread having to find them homes.  I am full and can’t take them in.  I don’t know anyone who could or who would.

Next week, we are going to see him.  A true near-saint, who got on far better with animals than he ever did with people, who was beloved by the animals he looked after and cared for.  I don’t know what to say to him or how to reassure him, I will just be praying for a miracle that includes a lovely person and a great home.

Cats are weird … just like humans

Cats seem to live a whole secret life sometimes, apart from us, full of their own rituals and behaviours.  It is something I  have taken a long time to realise but they truly are not just eating and shitting machines with fur.

Years ago, I had two rescue kittens.  And a new lounge suite.  A certain amount of panic set in.

All however was well.  My lovely new wine red lounge suite remained intact, with two two month old, then three month old, then four month old, then five month old, then six month old kittens.

Oh how sweet they were.  I cried buckets when we finally found them a home.  When packing them (and their favourite toys) up, I noticed two toy mice were missing.  As mine had been in and out babysitting, I assumed that they had appropriated the mice.  When I came home, after a lengthy journey and a rather tear-streaked, snotty farewell, I cleaned up.

I found the mice.  Neatly hidden, with several pawsful of biscuits, behind a panel of the sofa.  The sofa in question having a very neat slice down the side of it, so neat in fact I didn’t notice until I moved the sofa to hoover underneath it.  A little den they had made, just the right size for two kittens (and two toy mice and some food).

Part of me screamed as the other part of me went awwwww … deprived at the start, they were probably stockpiling just in case food ran short again.  It was no surprise to see photos a year later of two very shiny-haired large cats, both clearly keen on their noms.  And their behaviour was totally understandable but …

Now in her 19th year, with not a single tooth missing and in perfect shape, Felix has, for the past two years, demanded warm water to drink.  Not cold, not cool, but about the temperature of a baby’s bottle.  I think it started because my downstairs kitchen cold tap died and I one day gave them lukewarm water instead of cold.   I used to give my cats filtered water but those days are gone as Felix refuses to drink it.  She wants out of the tap, warm water, none of that fancy bottled bullcrap thank you very much.

I thought she might have teeth problems and the warm water was kinder than cold.  However, a full check up showed not a thing wrong with her, except for her studied malice for the vet and a demand for exactly the right temperature of her drinks.  Woe betide me if I get it wrong so for months now, each water bowl has gone out using the elbow test which, years ago, I used to use for my brother’s and then sister’s bottle feeds (if you can feel the temperature of the water on your skin it is either too hot or too cold).

One of my cats insists of taking a poo in the bathroom, right next to the litter tray.  It doesn’t happen every day so I assume they take a crap normally on most days.  It is not one of the “outdoor during the day cats” who might have the opportunity to poo elsewhere.  I have never caught the cat in question but I suspect Guinevere, for good reason.

Ever since I have had her, she has always had fastidious litter tray habits.  Capable of holding it in, she will wait until I get home and clear the tray before using it.  When young, she would also tear up bits of newspaper and put the pieces over her poo.  I have never seen her do it but have worked it out through process of (haha) elimination.

Guinevere kept up the newspaper habit for years and years, even after I stopped getting free newspapers through the door.  I am convinced she had a secret stash of newsprint.  Once again, it didn’t happen every time, just on odd occasions and on occasions where I could have sworn there was not a newspaper anywhere in the house.  As the stash must have dwindled, so did other paper come into play – kitchen towel and tissues retrieved from the bin.

My inclination to think my carpet-pooer is Guin, is that whoever it is, will insist on covering it up.  With a book, with shampoo bottles and when nothing else is available, with the bathroom mat.

But what happened the other night was just weird.  I use quite a bit of kitchen towel at home.  I also recycle religiously.  I put the recycling out but forgot I had an empty cardboard tube from the kitchen roll.  As it was late, I popped the tube into a bag with a few other bits of paper and hung it on the inside of the front door.

The next morning, I got up and there was the poo-next-to-the-litter-tray.  I looked at it, it looked me and lo and behold, on top of it was an empty kitchen towel tube.

Cutting a long story in half, yes it was the tube which had been in the plastic bag hanging off the front door.  You might be able to understand my incredulity when I took everything out of the bag to check …

So a cat had seen me put the kitchen towel tube into the bag, later had a poo and decided that the thing to do would be to come back downstairs, retrieve the tube (which would have involved a delicate journey to the top of the baker’s rack next to my front door, fumbling about, extracting the tube), then carried it upstairs and gently placed it on top of the poo?

No, I didn’t believe it either.

But there it was – the tube was missing from the bag and there was a tube on top of the poo.

A little more freakily is the hair thing.  Arthur and Merlin have soft, soft fur, Arthur in particular.  He has the softest fur I have ever stroked.  So for years, whenever I have combed them (which they need regularly, being long haired cats), I have kept their fur.

Not the shitty bits or the lumps but the pure fur which they shed.  I always thought about making something (a scarf?) out of it but have not managed to collect enough.  Also, the twin boys’ hold on life has always been a bit tenuous, so their fur is pretty precious.

So here I am, keeping their fur.  And here I am with long hair.  And here is my partner, with long hair.  As you can imagine, hair is huge in my house (I have pretty much given up trying to remove it all), with 8 cats, two of them long-haired and two others with thick white coats that shed everywhere, and mostly two adults, both of them long-haired.

The Stalker and I generally share a hairbrush in the “oh my god it’s past wake-up-and-go-to-work-’o-clock-hours”, neither of which we are good at.  And every couple of days, I clean the human hairbrush and put the hair in a bin.  Depending on where I am, it goes in the bedroom bin or the kitchen bin.

Twice a week, I hoover (more if circumstances like an overturned litter tray demand it) and once a week I do a complete clean.  Imagine my surprise (and slight creepiness) a couple of weeks ago to discover, under the sofa, a bundle of his and my hair.  And under my bed, another bundle.  And in the spare room – yes, another bundle.

Yes, that is right – whilst I have been collecting cat fur, they have been collecting bundles of human hair.  I am kind of hoping they have been playing with it rather than just … being weird but the hair doesn’t look like it has had a cat use it as a substitute mouse.  The bundles look just like they did when I put them in the bin … maybe they hold midnight rituals to the moon with human hair … the cats are very attached to the Stalker so perhaps they just bring them out to cuddle when we are not home  … either way … :-O.

And then there is the queen cat thing.  I am not sure I really buy into the theory that in a multi-cat household, there is always one, usually female, the most powerful, who rules the roost.  In my experience, things are a little more fluid than that, with some cats taking the lead in certain situations and relinquishing power in others.  An example of this is with Guinevere and Kitty.

Guinevere came into my house when the boys were about 9 months old.  I had my heart in my mouth about whether they would accept her but my worries were completely unfounded because they took one look and fell in love.  I have written before about the way they taught her, cleaned her, fawned over her … And this never happened again until Kitty arrived.  Arthur, who is always attentive, loving and kind towards any animal in my house, outdid himself.  Merlin paid her attention too.

Guinvere, who lived upstairs, moved downstairs.

In a very short space of time, I was seeing the same behaviours from all of the cats that they display towards Guin.  Kitty then started taking advantage (she is a shockingly single-minded little thing).  Arthur was the one who went to chastise her.  Whilst she still can be obnoxious as hell, frightening the living daylights out of Oscar, who is four times her size, and not averse to a scrap, she has started to learn the ropes.

She and Guin ignore each other completely.

The only cat willing to take her on is Felix, who is grumpy as hell anyway and even she gives way, albeit grudgingly.

Which brings me to my next thought – are Queen cats born, not made?  What was it about Kitty (who was thin, ill and quite frankly, not what I would have thought of as a Queen), that made the others recognise her?   I have a remarkably peaceful house for one filled with 8 cats.  Guin rules downstairs and Kitty appears to rule upstairs.

Kitty decides if she wants to lie somewhere and she does, no matter who might be lying there first.  She decides whether she is going to sleep somewhere, walk somewhere, do something (normally something like chew wires, claw the Stalker’s rucksack, handbags etc).  She is completely besotted with the Stalker, often ruining his night’s sleep to snuggle her face into his repeatedly, chew his hair, scratch his stuff, you name it.  If we are sitting in the bathroom having a late night ciggie, she bursts in and demands to be cuddled.

Any cats in the bathroom at the time are encouraged to make a quick exit whilst she turns her attentions to my boyfriend.  She tolerates me.  When he is not there, I am the focus of her attentions.  But only upstairs.

Guinevere on the other hand, rarely interacts with anyone.  She has a spot on the old sofa and when she wants a cuddle, she asks for it.  I do cuddle her outside of this and she enjoys it but she is apparently more interested in ensuring that everyone behaves themselves.  She can do this with a look and rarely needs to extends a paw or a hiss.

So not only is she convinced of her superiority downstairs and Kitty of hers upstairs, but the others buy into both totally.  Why is that?

Time, love and watchfulness have shown me that over and over again, cats have their own lives.  They may live with humans, cuddle with humans, ask for noms and plays and outsides and indoors (sometimes simultaneously) but in truth?  In truth, they live their own lives with their own rules, outside of us and it is a world that we can’t hope to understand or inhabit … but just is.

All I have to say today is here …

In the dank, damp grey of this afternoon, I stood today and watched a woman fall apart.  She was being gently surrounded by security guards.  They let her approach me, she asked me clumsily for a light, grabbing the lighter from me to light her dogend of a cigarette and saying “I kin do it” before glancing at me side-on and giving it back to me.

She had an unmistakable walk, that of someone whose cares weigh so heavily on their soul, it tells on their body.  A slightly uneasy, out of synch gait propelled her back into the light circle of people around her.

She stood, her head bowed, both resigned to her fate and jittering with energy.  In the space they gave her, she marched up and down, opened her carrier bag, marched sideways, talked to herself a bit and sighed.

One of the guards came and stood beside me.  “Careful” he said.  I asked what had gone on.  He gave me a potted history.  She had come in, been given notice to leave her hostel accommodation because she had beaten up a resident and stolen her money.  At that point, with nothing left to lose, she picked up and hurled a desk at staff, yowling obscenities and threats before being asked to leave.  She left, but not before assaulting the guard.  I noticed his face was bleeding.

They were waiting for the police to arrive, engaged in an ancient dance of tenderly keeping her under control in public, whilst not stifling her.  The police, who would have graded this as a minor matter in a schedule of murders and assaults, were taking some time.  The guards had to keep her safe, keep people safe from her and do their best to keep themselves safe too.

Someone came out, in a suit.  A minute or so later, she noticed him.  She walked up to him with as much dignity as she could muster , the guards parting on either side to let her through.  “’Scuse me” she said.  “I want to get out of here.  I want to get out of this town.  Tried ‘plaining to them in there, but they won’t LISTEN!”  Mr Suit waited for her to go on.

So did I.

She said “I didn’t mean t’hurt him.  I just got SO MAD.  They WON’T LISTEN TO ME.  I don’t have ‘nough to live on, I can’t make it with what they give me and now they are givin’ me less.  I’m gonna starve.  I can’t do it.  Why does this town give me less than I had before? I just want t’ live Mr, just want T‘LIVE!”.

She broken down then and sobbed.  I took a good look at her.  She was neat, tidy and her clothes were grubby.  No money for a laundry and certainly no washing machine.

Down on her luck and trying desperately to find a way out, she had been met with a wall.  She continued.

“Please Mr, I know the police are comin’, but I don’t wanna go back to jail.  I can’t fix THIS” as she pointed to herself and her surroundings, “in jail.  I am just gonna get worse.  I am really sorry for what I did but I got so MAD, they wouldn’ listen.”

The man in the suit tried to comfort her as best he could whilst they waited for the police.

I left then, not able to do a thing for her and not able to stand there and watch the last shreds of her dignity dissolve.

Some of her benefits had been taken away, leaving her well below the breadline.  Her one lifeline – gone.

She is not someone who has never worked.  She is not someone who lives in a council flat, with a flat screen television and a car outside.

She had a job and a life and a home and then something happened and it all slipped away from her.

Having some benefits and a place to stay meant that she could stabilise her life, take a breath, start again and try and build back what she had lost.   It’s gone now.

She hasn’t a hope in hell of “fixing herself”.  Two assault charges and homeless to boot will probably mean a jail sentence.  Once out, she will have even less of a chance to find a job, claw her way back to a life where she can survive, go back to being proud of herself.

She is not the ne’do-well our current government would have you believe she is.  She is not unwilling to work – there is none.  She is not unwilling to better herself – she can’t.

The benefits staff can’t help – the withdrawal of benefits is not their decision.  The fact that she has now lost a roof over her head, however poor, because in desperation, she tried to steal money means that they have to evict her, for the safety of the other residents.  Her desperation resulting in her violence, for which she was immediately sorry, has no cure.  There is nothing for her.

The security staff can’t help.  They did what they could to keep her safe and calm.  They listened to her.  They couldn’t help her, but they treated her with dignity and respect.   The reason why they did this is probably because they are not so far from the precipice themselves.  They don’t earn a lot.  If any of them were to lose their jobs and not be able to earn for a few months, their homes and their lives would quickly follow.  They had a job to do but it was clear they were going to do it with humanity and compassion.

Also, in the last few months, they have had a lot of practice.

More and more, they are taking the brunt of peoples’ desperation around the reduction and cancellation of their benefits; the random assigning of labels to mentally and physically ill and disabled people – “able to work“ (even when suffering from acute anxiety); “no longer needs his adapted vehicle” even when unable to walk; “has to apply for three jobs a week” (whilst undergoing chemotherapy to give her a few precious more months with her children).

We are a country that used to pride ourselves on our ability to take care of our vulnerable people and our animals.  Now we are neither.  Now, we close our eyes and ears to the cries of those dying on our streets and in front of our trains, jumping off bridges, selling their bodies and their souls to survive just one more week, one more month, because it has to get better, right?

Except it won’t.  It won’t get better for them or for her.  Not now and not ever.

We pretend that we would never get to that stage because we’re good at our jobs, we’re normal, sane people with family and friends and a lifestyle and a 36” television and a car in the garage.

We think of such people as people with problems, people who would never make it – losers, failures, drug addicts … you know what?  They all started out like you and me, with hopes and dreams and a life.

Then something happened – a bereavement, an illness, a catastrophe and they lost it all.  The safety net that you and I and everyone else in this country have paid through their noses for all our working lives is there is take care of us when we fall.  Except it isn’t there anymore.

I couldn’t help that lady today.  I don’t have the resources or ability to assist her.  I have nothing that would give her life back to her.

All I have is a  vote next election.

Too late for her and thousands of others who will suffer the same fate – demeaned by a government intent on persecuting them, criminalised due to their circumstances, in an ever-increasing, speeding spiral of deprivation.

I do have something else though …

It won’t help the lady today, but it will help others, also vulnerable, ill and increasingly just as desperate.

However, instead of throwing desks around and punching people in the face, they are more likely to go home to the roof over their heads they are about to lose because, despite their obvious mental illness, they have been labelled fit to return to work and have lost their benefits and their housing allowance; and quietly take pills, or sit in a warm bath and slit their wrists.

You may not relate to the events in this post.  You may still think it may never happen to you (guess what, 25% of people in the UK will suffer from a mental illness in their lifetime).  You may not want to sign a petition, or protest against the changes the government has made in your name.  But please, if you do nothing else to help, sign up to support this charitable foundation – http://5quidforlife.org.uk/.

100% of the money raised goes towards helping those who have lost their benefits and are mentally ill and desperate.  No admin fees, no staff charges, nothing except help for them.

5 quid a month will not even buy you a decent bottle of wine but it will help save someone’s life.  Not someone’s dignity or house or 36” inch telly, but their life.

____________________

*very slight changes have been made to the details above to protect the lady and the staff who tried their best to help her but this did happen today and is truthful in all other respects.

Christmas

No time of year is as emotive as this one.

For those of us who had less than loving childhoods, Christmas, with all its expectations of emotion, love, excitement and presents, more often than not descended into chaos, abuse, pain and fear.

For those of us who have lost loved ones over the festive season, Christmas is at worst a mockery of what should have been, at best a pale facsimile of something forever tarnished by loss.

For those of us who had happy childhoods, now deep in adulthood, it stands as a stark reminder of what it should be and never will be again.

I have talked before about Christmas when I was growing up.  In stark contrast to the weather, at 6am Christmas morning, Father Christmas, collected from the airport by our neighbour, Uncle Mike (because he had so many places to go and South Africa was at the arse end of where his travels would normally take him, Santa had to catch a plane to get to us), would arrive in our tiny road of 11 houses, at the top of the big hill and wend his way downwards, ringing his bell.  In fact, it was the sound of bell that brought most people out of their houses, audible before he was even visible.

And down the road he would come, distributing presents, remarking on how much this child had grown, whose little girl had their hair cut, making a special effort with those kids who had had a bad year and generally sprinkling a little bit of magic over us all, before getting into the car or van and with Uncle Mike driving back the way he had walked, waving at everyone and ringing his bell out of the window.

I was nine before I was told that Father Christmas was indeed my father.  I didn’t believe the girl who took it upon herself to tell me (and all the kids in the road).  My father was that good an actor that nothing of himself (except a certain twinkle in the eye) showed itself as Santa.  He once said that when he put the suit and makeup on, he didn’t feel like himself.  He felt as if (his words) “Old Saint Nicolas invades me and stays in me until it’s time to take the suit off again”.

His and Mike’s plan was seamless – at 4.30am, before the sun rose, Dad would get up, grab all his Father Christmas gear and leap over the 6 foot fence between our properties (having the built-in barbeque as a stepping stone helped), duck into Mike’s car and Mike would drive to the local petrol station, which was closed.  There, Dad would transform before Mike drove him back to our little road and the magic would begin.

The rest of the day proceeded with Dad “arriving back from work” (he worked at an oil refinery and being called out in the middle of the night, or at weekends or bank holidays was not unusual), ruing the fact that he had missed Father Christmas again before settling down to tea and mince pies.

The year we were all told that Father Christmas was Dad, he was gutted and presents instead appeared on the snake tree, all tied up with glittery ribbon.  If I recall properly, the next year, Uncle Mike became Father Christmas and it was Dad who collected him and drove him to our road.  He did an exceptional job and those younger kids who had a chance to believe in the magic again, did.  I was so very sad when I discovered that my brother had requisitioned the outfit.  By rights, it should have gone to Mike and I am gutted that the tradition died when Dad did.

Present-opening would begin (we all took turns at opening ours in a round so the excitement lasted) and then be followed by more tea, laughing and joking.  The year my Mum’s lovely cousin Gwen got all the labels wrong and Mum ended up with a posh deodorant and I ended up with a very risqué bikini aged about 8 was the first one I recall where we hooted with laughter.

The year my boyfriend at the time bought my Mum a very large pair of fake boobs was another one.  Mum had complained that her boobs were sagging and small and A responded very appropriately.  Everyone who visited that day tried them on, Mum first of all and I still have the photos, with her doing a model’s pose, topless, with just the enormous knockers on.  My brother and his friend also tried them but they looked second best after Mum on our neighbour over the road, who posed completely dead pan, complete with hairy chest.

There was the time that Mum wanted a microwave.  Dad was not convinced they were safe so held out for years and when he eventually agreed that actually they were, there was no money to get one.  That didn’t stop Dad, who scrimped and scraped in the months leading up to Christmas.  We often got presents in boxes that came from elsewhere so when Mum unwrapped her present and discovered the microwave box, she didn’t for a moment think that it was actually a microwave.  She grabbed a knife and started to cut into the box, with us all yelling “careful!” and when the cut gave birth to a long tear from which a gleaming, much desired, white kitchen accessory emerged, she burst into tears.

I made it home for every Christmas apart from two – the first year I was overseas, as I had been home in the October; unexpectedly and tumultuously breaking up with the aforementioned A and my mother was not on speaking terms with me.  I spent it in a pub with my cousins who had very generously offered to pay for both me and B, my best friend from school and current flatmate.  I felt very flat and hope that I did not come across as petulant and rebellious as I felt.  It was a foretaste of the future.

A little Christmas spirit was engendered on Boxing Day when B and I had gone back to the flat of the man who was to become my partner, Richard (we were flat sitting whilst he was up north with his family), we put the fire on, exchanged presents and had a cup of tea before realising that it was softly snowing outside.

One of the flat’s residents had proposed, his words written in the snow below us.  B was pregnant and the world seemed clean and the air clear, the future full of promise.

The other year I didn’t make it home (the reason eludes me now), Richard was working over the period (although not Christmas Day) so was in London.  We were used to not having Christmas together (me in South Africa, him in a little village outside Manchester) and would have pre-Christmas dinner and an After-Christmas-Christmas party for friends.

Richard knew how much not being home meant to me and made a wonderful effort, not only making a four course dinner but ensured it was full of my and Sal’s (who was living with us by this time) favourite foods, we had champagne, Sal and I rang South Africa and he rang the States, where his Mum was.  The weather was foul but we were snug indoors, with everything we needed.

So Christmases continued as we got older.  Dad, who every year thought he was getting too old for the part and worried about being too Fred and not enough St Nick , had to be cajoled a bit.  Mum still made a full Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve (Christmas Day being way too hot for an all trimmings affair) and we had cold cuts on Christmas Day, fighting over the last piece of her gorgeous ham.  As adults, a little of the gloss and excitement had naturally faded but we all still made it home for Christmas.

Two years before my Dad passed, my brother decided it was time to be a complete arse and on the basis that we apparently all hated his girlfriend (and what a mind fuck that turned out to be when she and I unravelled that little mess), declared himself ostracised from the family and declined to join us.  Nothing could have hurt my parents more, as he well knew.

We soldiered on regardless and managed two happy Christmasses without him.  The last Christmas was a bumper one, with me getting engaged and my sister being pregnant.  Dad once again became St Nick and despite having huge back problems (and being in the final stages of terminal cancer, although we didn’t know it) walked down the road unaided and sprinkled magic for the last time,

The first Christmas after Dad’s death I stayed home in the UK.  Faced with his death in the July, my husband leaving in the November (something I had kept from Mum until I absolutely had to) and my wonderful job in jeopardy due to a contract change, I also had no money to get there.  Whether Mum was not invited to spend Christmas with my siblings or may well have declined I am not sure but she instead went to CROW, where she worked and spent the day with the volunteers there, some of them very far from home themselves.  That became a tradition for her for the next four years.
Flying overseas at Christmas is ruinously expensive (a flight from the UK to South Africa costs three  times as much as does normally) it and I did not have the cash or, to be honest, the inclination or means to borrow the cash to do it.  I got home instead on her birthday.  I never spent a Christmas in South Africa again.

The second year after Dad died, I can’t recall what I did, but the third was spent with my lovely neighbour and my best friend, popping between the two.  Subsequent Christmases have been spent like this or with boyfriend’s families, including two lovely times spent in Manchester (for some reason, I always seem to date Northern men) and an equally lovely time last Christmas up in York

I was always enthusiastic about Christmas, started shopping, planning mid-year, booking tickets, rewriting lists, my spare cupboard filling up with gifts.  In recent years, I keep forgetting the bloody day is looming and this year in particular, being caught on the hop as the day gallops towards me and I am like a deer in headlights, unable to move but knowing I have to do so.

In truth, Christmas for me has just become a reminder of what we have forever lost.  My parents should be alive, their Christmases filled with grandchildren, joy, feasting and family.  I should be flying home, the eccentric aunt, bags full of presents, a bottle of Dad’s favourite scotch and a kilogram of pine nuts for Mum, who liked to make her own pesto but could not get them in South Africa.

Instead, they have gone, leaving behind amazing memories and a chasm so deep it will never be filled.  Christmas carols can still render me speechless with grief and I actively close my ears when walking around the shops to prevent spontaneous tears.

Given some of my friends’ recent posts on facebook, I am clearly not alone.  For all sorts of reasons, including some of those mentioned in the beginning of this blog, this day for us will always be bittersweet, for losses of all kinds and for the joys that should be in our lives.

I am thinking of us  all tonight and tomorrow and wishing them (and everyone else who reads this blog) the very, very best Christmas you can have.