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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So I go downstairs this morning and I’m desperate for a cup of tea to wake myself up.  The first thing I do is almost fall over Humphrey as he lies in wait for me in the living room.  It’s a bit like having insistent children around you with cats who want feeding.

You know, you sort them out first to shut them up then you can get on!  Before I can even put the kettle on he’s weaving around my feet, and his miaow has that pitch that just…

While I’m dumping food into his dish and telling him not to gobble it down, Portia is trying to leap through a locked door by standing on the washing machine and hurling herself at it.  Said door is double glazed so I can see this black shape on tip toes or should that be tip-paws pushing against the door.

Of course there isn’t any fish ready for her so I have to take the chicken out of the microwave where my sister has left it to defrost overnight, make sure it’s somewhere neither cat can reach while my back is turned, and find some fish – new bag so I now have to locate the scissors to open it…

And I still haven’t managed to fill the kettle for the tea.

Fish cooking, Humphrey now desperate to get into the garden, trying to open two doors at once for him to go outside and Portia into the kitchen from the utility room.  Her fish is cooked but too hot to give her so it’s break a piece off, hold it under cold running water until the temperature’s right.

Finally she’s sorted, I pick up the kettle – but no- now Humphrey is back in for seconds.  See to him then… at last at long last I fill the kettle.

Silence reigns for a few minutes while the kettle boils, I prepare my cereal and manage to sit down in the dining room with cereal, tea and the paper.  Peace and quiet until…

Oh no – the choking and retching noise that tells me a cat is about to be sick.  Walk into the kitchen in time to see Humphrey bring up all his breakfast!

But I do love him really.

Because it was such a wet night yesterday, Humphrey decided to put chasing small furry things on hold and grace us with his presence.  He sat curled up on my lap while I watched Dr Who.

He’s not as cuddly as the cat I used to have, called Sam, who would happily sit draped around my shoulders if I’d let him.  But in his own way Humphrey’s a loving cat.  I suppose he now comes into the category of senior cats because he must be about 9 or 10.  Not quite sure since he was a stray.

Given that Sam was 19 when we had him put to sleep, we could have Humphrey for another 10 years.  I don’t know how you’ve felt as an animal owner but I was in pieces when Sam died.  I’d had him since he was 4 months old and he’d moved house with me 4 times, been parked with friends when I had nowhere for him to be with me and generally he was the most tolerant cat.

When we moved here, I put him in his basket in the old house and he curled up and went to sleep and didn’t wake up till I was ready to let him out after the removers had departed.  The other cat Portia wailed all day, at the top of her voice distracting all of us!

There’ll never be another cat for me like Sam but I do love Humphrey for his funny ways and his independent spirit.  After Sam died I made a scrapbook full of photos and quotes.  One of my favourite ones is this:

“Cats could have ruled the universe but couldn’t be bothered.” Paul Gray.

I think they do very well as it is without the bothering.

What’s he been up to this week?

I was sitting peacefully having a cup of tea in our dining room with the back door open when

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You know how they used to read the oracle in ancient Rome by reading the innards of an animal sacrificed to the gods?  Well I felt this week as if I was trying to read the oracle because of…

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What is it about wind and cats?

I mentioned last week about how jumpy Humphrey can be but that’s nothing to how he is when it’s windy!

This morning he’s racing round the garden like the demon cat is after him and jumping up in the air as leaves swirl about.  What a mad puss!  I don’t know if he can be regarded as a reliable weather forecaster but he does fidget ahead of windy weather.

Well if I’m honest he fidgets a lot of the time so I guess that’s giving his fidgeting an importance it doesn’t have.  But if he fidgets with the weather why doesn’t he fidget when other cats are in the garden.  Or attempting to come into the kitchen,  which one did several times last week in the evenings.

We like to sit with the back door open in the evening if it’s warm.  Lately it’s become hazardous because the open door is a magnet (food not babe I think) to any passing cat.  Which means that if it’s going dark in the kitchen and we see a shadowy, cat shaped shadow, we’re never convinced if it’s one of ours or not.

Gives us good exercise, getting up to check I suppose.  The nearest Humphrey comes to helping us out is sitting on the doormat and going to sleep there.  They say that snoring can break up a marriage because of the noise and irritation.  Humphrey can snore with his eyes open.  Honestly he can.  I’ve seen him sit there looking at me and then comes the snore.

If owners get to look like their dogs, do cat owners suffer the same fate?  Or is it more a case of cats being drawn to owners because of… Honestly I don’t snore with my eyes open.

Spring is my favourite season.  The new colours, the warmer weather (we hope) and the sense of expectation and energy.  Spring is my favourite season except when it comes to…

Humphrey and small furry things.  Whatever pleasureI have at the thought of new life and growth is reduced more than a little when I find piles of innards or bones around the garden.

Or even worse on the doorstep.  Monday morning last I opened the back door to let in the fresh air and a stop out cat to find innards over a radius.  Just as well I was careful where I stepped or I could have had field mouse on the bottom of my shoe.  Ugh.  And somehow the worst thing was that I found its little tail separated.

I know it’s nature and I shouldn’t mind and it’s a present to a beloved person from Humphrey but still… ugh.

Oh and he’s been fighting again.  Not long after I wrote last week’s blog he turned up in the kitchen his eye running.   This time it hasn’t worsened except for the patches of scar tissue I can feel above his eye.

More next week.

We’re seeing less and less of Humphrey now.  Since we’ve had him, he’s been an outdoor cat mostly.  During the week when it was hissing down with rain we couldn’t entice him in.

Maybe it comes from his early life about which we know nothing, but he can be very fidgety inside.  For the first few weeks after we officially adopted him, we had to feed him outside because he was too wary to come into the kitchen.  And during the summer, apart from him appearing for meals we can go for hours without a sighting.

He does like it when we’re in the garden though especially if we’re moving about.   He has a game he plays with us.  Not in a nasty way because I don’t think he has a nasty bone in his body, but he likes coming up behind us and nipping our legs.  Which is fine if you have thick trousers on in the winter but not so great on bare legs!

Still he doesn’t dig his teeth in which is a mercy.  Now if it was Portia, she would dig in and mean it.  I once got blood poisoning in my thumb because she bit me.  Since that event she’s been banned from sitting on laps.

We always give people a health warning about her when they visit.  She’s beautiful, and loves visitors, especially men.  But her favourite trick is to rub round your legs then bite the hand you put out to her.

More next week.

I’ve just come in from the garden where I left Humphrey running round chasing bits of leaf!

Thank goodness he’s better.  It took till the middle of the week before he was back to normal and now he’s wanting food every time he comes into the kitchen.

When we were at the vets I was talking to him about Humphrey’s eating habits.  Because he attacks every meal as if it’s his last.  We’ve always put that down to him being a stray for a while and not knowing where his next meal might come from. The vet though said he’d noticed that it happens sometimes with cats in large litters where there isn’t enough milk for all the kittens.  Or in small litters but the mum can’t produce enough milk.

Whatever – Humphrey always eats like food is going out of fashion and will be taken off the market.  Which means he gobbles and sometimes he doesn’t give himself time to digest it.  So he ends up being sick.  Wonderful!

And then his stomach is empty so he’s looking for food again!

Now he’s better we have to be on guard in the garden.  It’s baby bird time isn’t it and that means…

Not that he stops at baby birds.  We’ve had many a full grown wood pigeon’s innards and feathers scattered round the garden.

Can’t stop nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ – I just wish it didn’t happen on my doorstep.

What a surprise this morning to wake up to snow – probably more than we’ve had here in Nottingham all winter.  Still it’s bright and shiny which is good.

But to get back to Humphrey – poor thing.  Just as I thought we’d got him nicely over his head injury, last Sunday evening he started to gag as if he couldn’t get his breath.  Monday morning he seemed better and he slept most of the day.  Which should have alerted me because he hates being in.

Tuesday he seemed no better so off to the vets… again.  This time to be told he probably had something stuck in his throat and since he wouldn’t let the vet look meant an anaesthetic and an x-ray.

When we picked him up in the evening the vet said they’d found nothing but that the throat seemed very sore.  An anti-inflammatory injection was given and we took him home.  By Thursday morning I was seriously concerned.  He’d eaten nothing since Tuesday evening, nor drunk any water and I was worried about him being dehydrated.    It was a long acting injection he’d received but I reasoned that it should have kicked in by then.

Different vet this time and the diagnosis was a chest infection.  Certainly that matched what I’d seen with him.  He couldn’t breathe easily, sounded wheezy and looked stuffed up around the eyes.  You know like we are with a cold.

So he had an anti-biotic injection this time and we went home.  Now this morning he’s much improved, is eating and of course wants to go out.  But he’s still wheezy and spluttery and has the occasional sneezing fit so I’m putting my foot down with a firm hand as they say and hardening myself against those soft eyes that tell meI’m treating him badly.

We’ll see tomorrow if it isn’t so cold and he isn’t so wheezy.  The vet told me to get him in the kitchen or the bathroom in the steam to help him breathe.  The thought of him in the shower with me doesn’t appeal!  So we’ve held  jugs of steaming water in front of him to see if that will help.

The things you do!

Let you know next week how he progresses