Entries Tagged 'Humphrey' ↓

Rewind of the firework thread last week because

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Seems like no time at all since i wrote last week’s update.

The only real thing that’s bugged me this week with cats is nothing to do with their behaviour but that of us humans.

Bonfire night. Now I’m not one to stop people enjoying themselves but where fireworks are concerned, I am concerned. Because if it was limited to one evening in the year when everyone went out and enjoyed fireworks either at home or at organised events, I’d be happy for them.

However depending where the 5th falls in the week, in our area that can mean five or six nights of continual firework use. Plus we have a firework shop only two streets away from where we live which means easy access for people.

Having to keep in one unhelpful cat who doesn’t understand why we won’t let him out and doesn’t connect it with the fact that he shoots back in the house if he hears any loud noise like the rubbish lorry, leads to a fun week.

So I pray for wet weather. Not so much to stop the firework displays, but more that I know Humphrey will come in when it’s wet without too much coaxing.

And don’t get me started on intermittent firework use for other celebrations.

Better sign myself off this week as grumpy cat owner I think.

We’re now back to normal – that is minus 5 year old and Humphrey has finally stopped peering round the door into the kitchen before he dares to enter.

He’s enjoying himself at the moment in the garden leaping and attacking piles of leaves that are piling up.  The merest breath of wind is enough to pretend that there’s a mouse or a bird hiding under them which he just has to attack.  His favourite trick is to leap on a carefully gathered pile and scatter it into as many other heaps as possible.

Even in the depths of winter and thank goodness we haven’t reached that yet, he likes to be out.  We have a rosemary bush on the edge of our raised herb bed near the kitchen door.  Sometimes it will be pouring down  and he’ll take up his position below the bush.  He looks miserable, he’s undoubtedly wet with the water running off the edge of the bush and yet he won’t come in.

No matter how many times we open the door and try to coax him inside he sits there.  Of course I feel guilty that he’s out in the wet but no matter.

Cats are independent.  And contrary.  And stubborn.

That’s why I love them.

Humphrey’s had a very stressful week.  Firstly he had strangers feeding him for a few days while I was away and then

he’s had to put up with a very helpful five year old trying to feed him every time he walks through the kitchen door.  Now liking food the way he does you’d think that he’d really enjoy that.  The problem is that as well as being helpful, the five year old has a lot of energy.

Which means that she jumps around and sings and dances – while she’s feeding him.

Enough to put a shy retiring cat like him off his food!

Well not quite.  But he certainly is very cautious as you open the door to him.  It’s like he has a radar scanning device for the tornado that is around.

Never mind.  By the time of my next update, she’ll have departed and he’ll be able to go back to our full attention.  And you never know – he might miss her.

Humphrey’s taken to being outside more at the moment because Continue reading →

I was reading this week about angels.  Now I don’t know if you believe you have guardian angels around you but most of us have occasions where things might have happened but didn’t.  Where cars didn’t hit us, we were looked after when travelling or some such event.

I hadn’t realised that there is in fact an archangel called Raphael, and one of his roles is in looking after lost pets.  Sometimes when Humphrey goes awol for hours without any warning, I’m prone to picturing him lying there hurt.

So now if he does go missing I can ask Raphael to look after him.

It’s not knowing that worries me.  Because if I did know he was hurt then I could do something to help him.  I suppose I don’t want to end up feeling guilty that I didn’t look after him properly.  When my previous cat Sam was hit by a car, bless him he managed to make it back to the garden and I found him there under the hedge.

Terrible day worrying about him.

Anyway this week was calm, and sunny and peaceful cat wise!

We had another minor scare with Humphrey last week.  I’ve talked before about how much he likes his food and missing meals isn’t usually an option with him.  Well on Tuesday morning he didn’t appear having spent the night out on the tiles.

Still hadn’t appeared by lunchtime and you can’t help worrying… a little.

Then we were on the landing looking out over the grassy area that’s at the front of the sheltered housing next to us.  One guy there has his own garden with borders and trellis and pots.  It looks a picture and we get the benefit of it.  Since he arrived he’s put up two garden sheds and a greenhouse where he grows most of his plants from seed.

While we were watching, we caught sight of some danger signs.  White feathers.  Or we thought so.  To check it out properly I went down to the garden and peered over the fence.  Definitely white feathers.

Well it’s happened before that Humphrey sometimes sleeps for a long time after a kill.  Just like the big cats.  So we stopped worrying.

Then after I’d been out I was putting away my bag in the bedroom and looked out again to see the old gentleman walking back to his bungalow having been by one of his sheds, or the greenhouse I wasn’t sure.

Two minutes later, one black and white cat arrives, very warm, very dry and hungry.  But not bite your hand off hungry.

What a cat.

What do you do with a filthy dirty cat who comes in and washes your kitchen floor for you?

No I don’t know either.

What a week we’ve had.  By Wednesday we’d abandoned all efforts to keep the kitchen floor dry.  It wasn’t his fault of course, the rain that we’ve had since last Sunday.

As I write this the sun is shining, which may give the garrden some respite.  It wasn’t just the wet that the cats brought in but the mud.

I’ve read a couple of books this week, both of which have had cats as characters.  Both cats as well as being characters in the book were characters.

Full of stubborness and guile.  One to avoid being put on a diet, the other simply to stay alive.

I suppose we all believe that our cats know what we’re saying to them.  And that we know what they’re replying.  Well neither Humphrey nor I needed interpreters this week.

I can’t remember which day it was, because the weather hasn’t helped me distinguish between the days, but one day Humphrey spent the day moving from one piece of furniture to another and adding a layer of dust.  Didn’t have the heart to turf him out but they won’t sit where you’ve put the covers will they?

At the moment he is downstairs sitting on a chair, fortunately minus any upholstery to dirty, having spent the night out in the border.  Bless.

We all know about cats loving the smell of the plant nepeta.  But till this week I had no idea that cats could also be addicted to…

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It’s been quiet on the dead body front this last couple of weeks.  I should have known it wouldn’t last!  And it hasn’t.  Yesterday morning…

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