My very own take away bird bar

Celia has installed a take away bird bar for me in the garden. It was never very well designed because the lure-feeders are too high but otherwise it worked more or less OKl. Scores of little birds arrived there and it was up to me to choose which ones to eat. Because of the design fault, I couldn't reach the high up ones, but a lot of the bait falls on the grass, which was my killing ground. Obviously no birds ventured there when I sat below in full sight but I enjoyed just looking sometimes - staying, as it were, in the first stage of the hunting sequence which is eye, stalk, pounce, grab, tear off feathers, eat.
Ordinary food in a bowl is just the last bit of the sequence and while satisfying hunger leaves all the other parts of the sequence not done. So just eating the food in the house leaves me filled but unfulfilled, so to speak.
So back to the take-away bird bar in the garden. When I was not just looking by sitting underneath, I used the shrubs for the hide before real hunting thrill. I sat in them and eyed the birds. I chose one, I did the stalk and bottom wiggle, then I sprang out, ran in and grabbed one before taking it in and tearing off the feathers on the carpet in the house, then ate it. I used to leave a little bit - perhaps a claw or a beak - for Mr Manners. Good fun.
But lately Celia has overdone the challenge. She had already put the feeders too high for me but yesterday she placed scrumpled up wire netting under the shrubs so that it interfered with my ability to do the run in. Now I run in up against the wire. That woman has not got any common sense. She's well meaning and I appreciate her thoughtfulness in taking the trouble to build the take-away installation. But she's now got the whole thing wrong. I can't reach the take-aways.

Odd white stuff outside. Snow and self pity - human, of course

It was an unusual light dawn so I woke Celia early. She was sluggish because she'd been late the night before. This going out and coming home later really isn't what I need. It puts a quite unneccessary strain on our relationship when she does this and I don't appreciate the behaviour. She has duties which cannot be performed if she is absent, as she was all day yesterday. So she needed a force six wake up - jumping on bed, heavy walking up and down the torso, chirruping noises, mock fight with William, loud purring and rubbing her face while dribbling. When we got downstairs there was the reason for the odd light - the garden was white with snow. It wasn't really dawn at all. It was much earlier and the sky was still dark. I don't remember seeing snow at all in my first year of life so I was intrigued. I skipped breakfast (no more roasted bits, thank goodness) to go out for a look.
The white stuff was pretty cold, fluffy in appearance, but wet. As I like wet things, I jumped about a bit, put my paw in it, poked it, and fooled around. William came out and stood around looking sort of bored and superior. He isn't, so I don't mind it when he pretends to be. Then I got bored and wet and cold, so I came in for breakfast.
All this makes a change but I can't say snow is very satisfactory. It looks fluffy but it isn't really. Just goes soppy the more you touch it. But I told Celia to take a photo because I think I look rather good on a white background. Instead of being grateful for being woken up to see the first snow before dawn, she was yawning a lot and complaining she hadn't had enough sleep. Humans are full of self pity.

Shun small girls - except Alice

The homo sapiens young are usually to be avoided. The babies are incredibly backward, compared with kittens. Kittens walk within a few days, babies can't for weeks and weeks. Then a year or so later they start taking an unhealthy interest in cats. Sometimes there are interesting bits of food to be picked off them, but usually there's a lot of dribble, clutching hands and generally inappropriate behaviour. Still later on the small female homo sapiens becomes even more sinister. Small girls always want to cuddle cats. They insist on picking them up all the time. And they commit the unforgivable sins of DRESSING UP cats in baby clothes and trying to put them in dolls' prams.
But there is one small girl I like, because I am rather an exceptional cat. I actually enjoy being picked up and I don't mind a cuddle. So when Alice came to stay last summer, we bonded. She is not like most small girls. She knew cats were different from dolls and she never tried to dress me up or put me in a dolly's pram. She learned how to call me properly, using my proper name in the right sounding call. Then she would pick me up putting her hands carefully under my bottom so that I was supported. I would be cuddled for a bit and carried round the garden by her. Then I'd jump off and do something interesting. She'd call me and, because I am a people cat, I would go for another cuddle.
Admittedly after about two hours, I got bored and disappeared because I had better things to do. William, on the other hand, just made himself scarce from the beginning. He may have social skills with other cats (being brought up in a 70 cat household) but he's no good with small girls. Not even Alice.

Cats one: humans nil.

Well it didn't take long. In the battle of wits between human and cat, it was always going to be a human defeat. But I thought Celia would hold out longer. She caved in after only 24 hours. No more roasted bits were served. She upgraded to the pate type food - not my favourite but acceptable for the time being. The sachets of roasted bits were taken away to be put in the Cats Protection unwanted food bin at the vets. Rather like handing out scraps of food to the poor in Victorian times. They will be properly grateful for them, poor strays.
How did I do it? Well the picture shows how. I simply tipped my unwanted roasted bits into the water bowl. Neat, eh? I have to confess I licked up the gravy first. A sign of weakness, I know, but not weakness that mattered in the overall strategy. Celia came down to find the bits deposited in the water. When I don't like something I usualy rake up the floor round the unwanted items in my bowl. Some humans call this caching food and say I am trying to hide them, as a kind of storage to eat later. I don't dispute it's an instinctive thing but it's not about storing the food for later. Oh no. It is about disposing of it in a litter tray way. If food is shit, then I bury it. Only this time with a deft backhander of a handsome black paw, I upped the bowl so that it fell in the water tray. Rather skillful, I thought.
William came up trumps too. I don't say he acted out of solidarity because that dog-like behaviour would be demeaning for any cat. He ate one of the two bowls of roasted bits left down over night. But then he sicked it up on the living room carpet.
The day has started well. Cats one: humans nil.

Felix roasted bits - it's war between me and my human

More Felix roast bits. I don't like them. I will eat the gravy around them but I don't like the bits themselves. So I eat the gravy and then William, who is less fussy than I am, eats the bits or at least some of them. At the moment there are two half eaten bowls of this particular Felix. Visible evidence that I don't like them at all and William doesn't much care for them either. Now it is a battle of wills. Me against Celia. She bought them on special offer. Cheapskate behaviour. She didn't save on her free range roast chicken by buying a special offer frozen one from Thailand. Why buy my food on special offer? And why were they on special offer in the first place?. I think I know why. They just don't taste as good as the more expensive Felix food.
If William had a greater sense of solidarity with me, we could present a united front against her. Then there would be two bowls of roasted bits minus any of the gravy just sitting there. Alas, he has eaten some of them. Of course if he had a sense of solidarity with fellow felines he wouldn't be a cat. He'd be a dumb stupid dog with too much altruism for his own good. We cats don't do the pack perversion bit. We have the selfish gene. (Well dogs have the selfish gene too but it is routed via their altruism - great for wolf packs, not so great for Labradors, poor saps.) So I can't rely on William to hold firm any more than he could rely on me.
What I can rely on is my own inner persistence. If there's one thing we cats pride ourselves on, it is persistence. Humans don't know the meaning of it. Celia has never sat waiting at a hole for a mouse for two hours in wind and rain. She gives up when something doesn't work and tries something different.
So if it's war of waiting over the Felix roasted bits, I think I can hold out longer. Maybe I can't win today. I notice she has failed to fill up the bowl of dried food which I have been eating in preference to the roasted bits. She thinks she is going to be firm. But I know she isn't going to be. Sometimes tomorrow, or the next day, she will weaken. Watch this space.