Cat naps

Flad normally starts patrolling the area around his food cupboard from around 3.15 pm onwards He expects dinner at 4pm, having had breakfast any time between 5 - 7 am with a lunchtime snack of some biscuits in between. When Mr Grumpy got up yesterday at 6-ish, he found the remains of two shrews or small mice in the kitchen but Flad still ate his morning sachet of Whiskas. Dinner, however, was another matter entirely. He sniffed at it, walked out and wasn't seen again.

At a quarter to midnight I was patrolling the garden with a torch. No sign of Flad though I surprised a hedgehog. I woke around 5 am following a horrid dream about Flad having his head trapped behind a radiator which in turn was up the side of a grand piano. (I've obviously been watching too many Proms on TV.) I got up and opened the door to the living room. No Flad. He wasn't in the kitchen, there was no sign of him in the garden, last night's dinner was untouched and my heart sank into my boots. I looked in shed and garage in case he'd got in and couldn't get out. Then he appeared, coming through the hedge from next door. He sniffed at last night's food, then stalked off. I threw it on the lawn for the magpies and crows (though some fat slugs got there first - get a wriggle on, hedgehog!) and opened a new sachet. One sniff and he was off again, plodding across the garden and flumping down between the cherry trees in the spot that used to be, and sometimes still is, his lavatory. (Strange creatures, cats. I wouldn't choose to snooze in poos. Would yous?)

Then I rembered his penchant for M&S turkey slices and the fact that I had slung half a packet of time-expired ones out on the lawn last night. Could that explain the fact that breakfast is still untouched, apart from one mini mouthful? He may well have finished off the rest of the mice in the nest, too. Being minus one of his vampire fangs doesn't seem to stop him killing and munching rodents. Ugh! Which reminds me of the time he... No, I mustn't go there. Don't want my readers losing their Saturday brunch.

Above and below are just a few of his sleeping places over the last couple of weeks. Wish I could just flop down and zonk out the way he does. Top: Bottom step cat. In-tray Cat. Ant hill cat.

Foot of page: Deck cat. Patio chairs cat. Sneaky bed cat (he hurled himself at the door and pushed his way in and had dozed off before I caught him. Or was he just pretending? He knows he's not allowed on unmade beds. Bottom: Mr Grumpy's lap cat.