Hodge

Did I mention that the cat tends to curl up on Michael’s bed during the evening? At night we put her in the utility room as, if we left her the freedom of the house, she would begin yowling for food outside our door at 4 a.m. She doesn’t like the utility room despite its comforts which include a rug, an armchair and ready access to the outside world via her cat flap. She has to be lured in. I am usually last to bed. I go into the kitchen and open the cupboard under the sink where the dry cat food is kept and, usually, before I have closed the cupboard she comes streaking into the kitchen from upstairs at a speed that is surprising in one so portly. Her hearing is amazing.

Unrelated (though cat related, stay with me here). I was cycling down the lane the other day and a neighbour whom I don’t know was at his garage with a small, yappy dog which came up and barked at me and generally held me at bay. I waited for the neighbour to come and rescue me, which he did, “She’s all bark and no bite,” he said scooping her up under his arm. “She’s terrified of your cat, actually.” It appears that Hodge has been wandering around the neighbourhood terrifying local dogs. In this particular case, the neighbour had come home one evening to hear his dog going ballistic in the hall. When he went in it was to discover that Hodge had let herself in through their dog flap and was lolling on the landing watching the dog racing up and down the hall barking while being too scared to go and tackle her. Oh mortification.

Just because you’re fat, doesn’t mean that you’re not hungry. Our cat is living proof of this. All of our meals are eaten to the accompaniment of increasingly desperate squawks from the cat. She is on an endless, unavailing diet which she undermines by catching and eating wildlife supplements.

Mr. Waffle bought me flowers and a card on Valentine’s Day. We don’t usually bother with Valentine’s Day because I am terminally unromantic. The children put us under pressure though and he was always more likely to crack because at heart he is a complete romantic. I put the flowers in a vase in the other room and the cat used her time alone in the kitchen to eat the roast beef intended for the Princess’s lunch time sandwich; so it was a definite win from her point of view. When I went to the fridge to get the pre-sliced turkey which was the alternative for lunch, I found that the fridge door had opened (an ongoing problem – sloping floor, poor seal, overfilled) and the cat was working her way steadily through the turkey slices.

Yesterday evening when I came home she had managed to heave her impressive bulk on to the roof of the neighbour’s shed. She was delighted to see me and made a series of pathetic, I’m stuck noises. I tried to coax her down but to no avail. Even though I was late for my tennis match (lost 6-1, 6-3, alas, thanks for asking), I felt I couldn’t just leave her there. I hauled out the ladder from our own shed and hopped up to grab her but she had disappeared. I leant out uncertainly checking the neighbour’s shed roof and guttering and I heard the cat in the distance as though she were indoors. I started checking pipes, peering into alcoves and generally risking life and limb. I heard her again and there she was sitting looking at me from the doorway of our own shed with a “what is she doing” look on her face.

So, for those who asked, she’s fine thanks but the rest of us are starting to feel increasingly resentful.

This evening I said “Hello Puss” to the cat who was sitting on the stairs. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the axe that Michael has fashioned from tin foil for Halloween.