"You come in late. You just walk in without any explanation in the small hours and think you can crawl into bed with me without so much as an apology." That was the accusation that met me last night when I popped back through the cat flap after a night's hunting. I've noticed her saying much the same to Ronnie too. It's a habit of human females.
OK so it was little late - 3 am. I just hadn't realised the time. I was having such an exciting time hunting rats in the old piggery down the farm track. Time flies when you're having thrills. It's not the caterwauling female cats out there that make me stay up late. Hunting I love but love I laugh to scorn, as the bard said - more or less. Celia thinks, with Dr Johnson, that "it is very strange and very melancholy that the paurciy of pleasure should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them." She's wrong. Badly wrong. She tries to shut the cat flap so I can't get out into that dark world of excitement, cruelty, blood and death.
She whines and complains when I get back late. All she thinks about is how I might get eaten by a fox or run over by a car. She doesn't sympathise with, and doesn't want to hear of, the pleasures of waiting near a rat hole, the mysterious whispering and squeaking that goes on in the night, the dark shadows where you might see a tail slipping by, the cry of the hunting owl, the bark of the hunting fox, the quiverings, the pouncings, the crunch of bone as my teeth sink into a furry neck. The night is alive with hunters of all kinds and full of dark cruel doings. Moonlight and shadows play in a world of predators and prey.
I was late. And I was rather late the night before. And the night before. The delights of the fireside, the bowl of food, and the touch of a human hand, are nothing to the fierce excitements of the night. Just thinking about the world of the dark makes me quiver with anticipation. She just doesn't understand me.
I AM THE THE AUTHOR OF "A-Z. A CAT'S GUIDE TO HUMANS. "A must read for all felines,"-- Tilly the Ugliest Cat in the Shelter. "Saved me from so many mistakes with my new human,"-- Toby the Cross-Eyed Stray.
Dear George
ReplyDeleteI like your style, that's just the type of cold shoulder I'm planning on inflicting on my owner when I get picked up tomorrow from a record breaking 2 week incarceration. Free the Woodley One!!!
Humans are clueless when it comes to our street fighting nous. Just look at the collars - I am frequently reduced to eating my breakfast with my stretchy band accross my chest with an uncomfortable leg through it because it won't accommodate the bushes I like to crawl through. Then it gets spotted and I'm quickly released before my human goes to work (elsewhere!). No way is it going on again within the next 2 hours so I'm left free. However, part of the collar lets me back in the house again. My only recourse in the afternoon is to take the cat flap off the door on the way back in, leaving a more useful hole in the kitchen door. They were surprised the first time I did that. I watched them repair it from the top of the stairs. Never underestimate a cat.
Smudge
Ex street cat, killer of mice, newts, frogs and birds. Expert sleeper and sunbather.