A Definite Liability

So then our home insurance renewal notice comes in and is chucked into a corner until there's nowt of interest on the telly. I'm sipping whiskey as I read how underinsured we are. Must do something about that. Then something catches my eye and whiskey is spat out onto the floor. I make an urgent telephone call.

"Hello, I'd like to change one part of our home insurance, please?"
"Okay, sir. Which part?"
"I'd like to change the death cover from the dog to two cats and a goldfish, please."
"Pardon?"
"You have €260 cover on the dog on the policy. But the dog is dead for years now and we never claimed. So I reckon two cats and a goldfish take up less space than a dog. So please cancel the dog cover and change it to cat and fish, please."
"Are they pedigree cats?"
"No. Definitely Heinz variety. One's a tabby and the other's black all over, if that's any help."
"And the fish?"
"Well it lives in a tank. Doesn't get out much. Definitely not risky."
"Er.... I'll have to speak with my supervisor."
"No problem. Oh, and the €3,000,000 public liability insurance?"
"What about it?"
"Would someone be able to make a claim on that if, say, the goldfish got out of its tank one day and fell on the floor and someone slid on it and hurt themselves?"
"I'm really not sure, sir. If I could just speak to my super...."
"Or, say, if the cat saw the fish on the floor? And on trying to pick it up the cat ran over and tripped someone up and they hurt themselves? Would they be able to make a claim for some of the €3,000,000?"
I could hear voices on the other end of the line, the kind made when someone is approaching the phone after being waved frantically over.
"If someone tripped on a cat, slid on a fish, hurt themselves... Could we or they claim for replacement fish cover, cat cover, and public libility cover? And what about the second cat?"
"We'll have to phone you back, sir."
They haven't, yet.
I don't think they have my number.

Waiting

Invasion of the Kibble Snatchers

This gad-about-town has decided he lives with us.

I say "he", at a guess, because the Ginger Puss (see, we've named him already...!) is a bit thick and this is a male trait among pussy cats.

When he appeared on the scene aboutMarch 2007, he caused a ruckus with our two outdoor moggies, especially as he wished to go into their rather luxurious shed / cat house, eat their foot, drink their water, shit in their litter tray and sleep on their window ledge.

Our black cat, a neutred tom, did his best in terms of bluster, singing voice, and puffing himself up like a bottle brush. Ginger Puss was unimpressed.

I did my best, puffing myself up like a bottle brush and rushing out into the garden at odd hours armed with mugs of ice-cold water. Ginger Puss was wetted, run off, but, it seems, not discouraged. He would clamber up slowly onto the wall, or a shed roof, and meow most pitifully at the sheer cruelty of a world where a perfectly adorable, handsome pussy cat like he would be attacked without reason.

Then he decided that being chased, splashed, swiped at by a black cat, and generally set-upon was simply what happened at our house. He turned up every day.

I was tiling in the front porch one morning with the front door opened when he sidled past. He meowed a greeting as if to say:

"There's that purple monkey that keeps spilling his drink in the garden. Better say hello, I suppose."

One dark evening, I spied him on top of a wheel bin and as I had just put the cats to bed and was coming back down the path with a flashlight, I dazzled him long enough to get within swiping distance. He heard me at the very last moment and only took a half-hearted skelp from the back of my hand before sliding down the bin and up the fence, already chorusing mournfully how innocent he was in the cruel, cruel world.

The other evening, Herself called our evening mantra: "Come on, cats!" and there was the usual procession down the path towards the shed. Part way there she realised there were three cats instead of two. She shooed Ginger Puss off but he ended up nose to the shed door, waiting to be let in and fed like the others. He had an expression on his face of "Well, you called for cats. I'm a cat. Open the bloody door then!"

What are we going to do?

Heat...! At last...!

I received a very welcome text today from Herself, saying that the plumber had rung her at work and said that the heating system had finally been hooked up and was working.

It's been quite cold over the past couple of days with the wind direction swung around to the north-east. So the weekend was promising to be a chilly one, which our stop-gap electric heaters probably wouldn't have suited.

A blast of heat greeted me as I stumbled in the door. It was WONDERFUL!

Now we're heating every room to drive out the cold from the fabric of the building, which has aided the mould growth I've referred to in a previous post. The two "outdoor" cats have been most impressed; the indoor pussycat has fallen in love with the notion of continuous heat.

We'll ease off on the burning of the gas after the weekend. For now we're enjoying the luxury.

Scardy Cat

Black Cat (as we call him) is one of the scardiest "tame" cats I've ever known.
His half older brother was a lot worse. He was so given to running away from things as a young cat living in my father's junk-filled conservatory, that even fast asleep he would go from floor to rafters in about 1.5 seconds, at least one second sooner than his brain would wake up to assess the "threat."
The problem came from lack of handling as a very small kitten.
We tried to get over this problem with Black Cat by making sure both he and his tabby sister were handled every day. This caused new difficulties, because the kittens disappeared in the dining room every day and we had to move furniture and dismantle things to find them.
When the plumbers were here recently, fitting a new central-heating system, Black Cat fled. He was so used to slink-running to his shed that he kept the habit up for a week or so after the workmen had left. Once he heard the key jangle in the back door -- worse, a glass door that he could easily see through and (one thought) identify the visitor as one of the family -- he would hug the concrete path with his belly and scoot along in as low a profile as possible.
Yesterday, I laughed out loud at the site of him. I'd often seen cats slink running. But slink galloping was entirely new to me!
Black Cat is brainy as well as stupid, a strange combination. Where other cats will make dark pools of their eyes and whack your wriggling fingers as you coax them to play, he sits there on the sofa looking at the hand, then back at you as if to say:
"But it's you, doing it!"
Maybe its the tomcat in him. We've only been close to female cats down the years and so owning a male may, perhaps be a different kettle of tuna fish.
Are male cats a bit thick, I wonder?

Flying smoke alarm invasion

Herself thinks that putting on the feathers is just too much. I don't think so. Although the giant "worm" made from a discarded vacuum cleaner-hose and painted reddish might be taking things a little far.

But such is the level to which I have been reduced, wearing a dark-coloured boa and flapping about in snorkeling flippers in my back yard, competing in avian psychology with a savage blackbird which has been terrorising the neighbourhood for the past two weeks.

It started innocently enough with Herself and myself "Oooh"-ing and "Aaah"-ing at the lovely trills and warbles from last year's incumbent in the blackbird territory which appears to extend from the bottom of our road -- three or four back gardens in length -- to the top -- maybe another ten or twelve gardens' worth in the other direction. Last year's cock of the walk was a handsome chappy that battled it out in song with his near neighbours.

This year a new pretender has muscled in. And it isn't only other blackbirds which are considered enemies and intruders.

I thought the cats would naturally be a cause of the incessant "Shreep! Shreep! Shreep!" bird alarm calls, but then I realised the cats were inside the house and the only one around was me, minding my own business in a white, plastic garden chair in the rare patch of sunlight.

"Shreep! Shreep! Shreep! Shreep! Shreep!" the bugger says. And not only that: he flies up to the roof of the house in his Shreeping, then down to the wall, then onto the shed roof. On the shed, he ruffs up his tail feathers and makes a mock charge at me, holding his wings up suddenly to make a threatening flurry.

"That only works on other blackbirds, stupid," I said to him. But he kept right on Shreeping. It was getting on my nerves, setting my broken teeth on the last of their edges.

At one point, our tabby cat arrived outside to survey the scene. She watched him go from shed to house to wall to shed to house to wall again. The evil little puss waited until he had gone out of sight then nonchalantly placed herself in ambush on a piece of junk lying up against the wall.

"Swish!" went her claws as he landed briefly on the uppermost concrete block. He dodged easily. But no. He didn't fly away in fear, as might be expected of a reasonable blackbird. He took up position on top of the shed roof and added a "Chuck! Chuck!" to the "Shreep! Shreep! Shreep!" for a while.

The cats are bemused. His strategy is working, because they have generally made it known that they are less comfortable in the back garden during the day than before. Myself, I tend to stay indoors and close the double-glazed windows so I can't hear him. When he doesn't have me to bully, he Shreeps at wood pigeons and women hanging washing.

I have heard him from inside our kitchen and walked boldly outside clapping my hands loudly. This has some effect -- maybe because it has an auditory component that the little fecker understands -- because he ducks over the perimeter into another garden out of reach and "Shreeps!" at me from a safe distance. But it's only a temporary respite. I need to show him who the boss is.

So in the end I find myself in the black boa and the flippers, clutching a giant fake worm. If he wants to be top of the pecking order around here he's in for a disappointment. I can strut better than him, and catch bigger worms, and flap bigger wings. Just watch me, little birdy!

Herself has gone to watch the television news.

She says she's not answering the door to any more policemen.

The Black Cat met a Purple Person

"Four years," the taxi driver says to me, holding up four Sri Lankan fingers. "Four years I worked for Domino's Pizza. I was top driver. I know all the local places."

I had mildly wondered to myself when he was going to ask me where exactly he was bringing me. I had told him the address when we started out.... about ten Euro ago.... and he had repeated it before setting off in the right direction. I supposed that like other taxi drivers he would know where Firhouse was, then ask me where the destination was nearer to home. But no. He knew it already.

"I have friends in all the stations," he said. "Stations"appeared to mean Domino's Pizza shops. I didn't know whether this was the official Domino's term or the Sri Lankan equivalent. My African neighbour complimented me once on tidying up my compound, which I found out meant my garden. Perhaps there was something of this going on.

"I got a fare once," my driver remarked. "He sat right there in the front..." He slapped the front passenger seat, in case I thought the passenger had been sitting on the driver's lap. "And he was amazed that I knew where Cill Cais was. Four years in Domino's Pizza."

He held up the same four fingers and peered at me over his shoulder and a pair of small, square-rimmed glasses. We were stuck in the same immobile traffic I would be stuck in had I not missed the bus by a whisker. With the tip, it cost me the best part of €20 to get home from The Square.

"I'm walking," I announced the next afternoon in work. "There is no way I'm spending another hour and a quarter on a bus journey, or paying €20 for a taxi."

So I found myself in a lather of sweat on the Old Bawn Road at half-past five -- empty buses passing by in the scant traffic (of course!) -- yesterday evening, marching determinedly home. At Killakee I took a shortcut that added ten minutes to the journey. I ended up crossing through the field opposite the house, knuckles dragging through the freshly cut grass, thankful that the front door wasn't another ten yards away because I probably wouldn't have made it.

"Hello, Black Cat," I gasped at himself, and he sitting upright on the garden wall.

Black Cat looked at me in terror. Who was this brow-drenched, purple faced person shambling ominously towards him from this unexpected direction? How did the terrible monster speak with the food monkey's voice? How did the monster's tongue loll out of its mouth so far? Black Cat flattened himself on the wall so only his ears and ever-widening eyes looked over the gate. Then as the stranger showed no signs of turning from his vaguely zig-zagging course towards the front door, Black Cat's nerve went entirely and he fled.

I sat for twenty minutes in an armchair without saying a word. Eventually, the red mist before my eyes lifted. In time -- a long time -- I could move one of my feet.

I hate commuting.

Tonight, I announced I may buy a bicycle.

The cat will only love that one...

No Pity

Some people think that cats' faces are expressionless. This is one of a set of pictures of Buttons taken by me lying full-length on the floor and using a miniature tripod. Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Whoops of joy

It now being 10.32am on Saturday, I should be expecting around about now to be rolling over and wondering if I will make it to the bathroom on time if I stay just five minutes longer in the bed. Instead, I have already eaten breakfast, rolled up part of a gazebo and stowed it in its tote bag, cleared a moderate space on a dining room table, brought recyclables out the back and plomped them into the green recycling bin, spoken in various tones to one black cat and one tabby cat, and listened to a bunch of politicians and writers on the radio. The reason for this unusual Saturday morning activity is threefold:

1) I awoke to a ding dong. Followed by a ding............................... dong. Then a dingdong, dongdong, dongdong. Obviously someone was trying to get my attention at the front door. I pulled on a robe (as the Americans like to call them) and stumped off downstairs. My father usually calls early on Saturday morning, but I knew he was occupied with getting his new old car ready for an NCT test and wouldn't be visiting. The blue uniform of a post man blurred in and out of the frame of obscure glass by the front door. At least it wasn't a canvassing politician.

"Sorry about that," he said, scribbling on a registered post delivery docket.

"That's okay," I mumbled. "I was just having a wild man lie on."

"What's that?" he asked, still scribbling, then looking up.

"It's when you sleep looking like THIS!"

I thrust my head out the door in full unkempt medusa pose. His jaw dropped a little, but he recovered, gamely.

"Sign here, please?"

2) I returned to the bedroom, sat on the side of the bed, and heard:

"Shag-a-loop! Shag-a-loop! Shag-a-loop!"

Why do cats not move somewhere else when they decide to vomit? Why do they sit in the middle of the bed when they decide to vomit?

"GL-LOCKK...!

"For f**k's sake!"

The cat, having ejected the unmentionable onto (of course) the bedsheet, jumped onto the floor with a bump. Somewhere under the bed came a couple of final Shag-a-loops...

3. Cat puke cleaned up and bedsheet dumped into the laundry basket, I was considering getting back into bed with the top sheet under me when the cat sauntered over to her litter tray and completed the morning's digestive ablutions. This time from the other end.

I opened the window.

I didn't jump out. I didn't throw the cat out the window. I just let some fresh air in and got dressed. I know when I'm beaten.

Herself, who doesn't have to turn up for work today, greets me with:

"Isn't it great to be able to relax on Saturday?"

"Mumph," I said.

Cats...!

Pass me the Gazebo, missus

A little bit of sunshine has ensued and it hasn't rained much to speak of on the east coast for the past week or so. The Home section of Dunnes Stores is playing a blinder selling garden furniture, barbeques and gazebos. I could see burly husbands marching boxes of them out to parked cars in The Square yesterday. The wives were following up with shopping trolleys laden with bedding plants.

Our B&Q gazebo was unpacked from winter hibernation this morning. My father, who had called to show me his shiny new seven-year-old car, watched as I poked lightweight metal tubes together and made the magic of the summertime appear amidst bags of recycling drinks tins and plastic bottles which is our back garden.

The black cat put in an astonished appearance only briefly. Although he is becoming less wary of visitors if they are in the back garden (more room for him to escape if they should turn on him) he is still unhappy to see old men. The old man next door has had reason enough to chase our cats out of his shed in the past which I think is the source of Black Cat's phobia.

A note left on the counter this morning reads:

"If you have time, could you clean the litter trays?"

My work is cut out for me. At least I shall have a gazabo to relax in later today. I also have a new gas-fired barbeque, so if you hear sirens and see flashing blue lights this afternoon, you'll know what's happened.

No work til Monday.

Related Post: B&Q Gazebo instructions

My kind of people, Vets

Since Herself and Meself got together there have been all kinds of animal followers about the place. In the past few years these have been whittled down to a collection of cats in various states of repair.

Naturally, this meant that we had to have dealings with vets. The one we chose for handiness sake, in Tallaght Village, was run by a mad genius by the name of Peter. Peter the Vet.

Like something out of "All Creatures Great and Small" the Priory Veterinary Hospital was filled with roaming creatures and random children eating ice cream.

You'd enter with a basket containing a cat and be met by a three-legged hound with a long wagging tail and a big, wet nose. Peter the Vet would be somewhere in the back stitching up an ear on something while trying to keep the rest of the pack away. He'd invariably greet you by asking:

"Do you want another cat?"

The basket would be left in a safe place while you were given the mandatory tour of the cages in the next room.

"Peter, I already have six cats."

"So? I'll give you one with its shots and all thrown in for free."

The idea of accounts seemed to be foreign to Peter the Vet and it was never certain exactly how much money would change hands at the end of a visit. Usually, it was negotiable.

Peter the Vet would be called out at all hours of the day and night and was usually yawning because of it. On a housecall, he'd come in and flop down onto the floor to watch the behavour that was causing concern. But no critter likes the V.E.T., and no matter how friendly he was, tails would disappear between legs and bellies would flatten to the floor as soon as they say him.

Peter put back together several wonky animals for us and never at the full price. Anti-biotics for cuts and bites would appear in little brown envelopes and his hand would wave dismissively at the mention of payment. After some years I was sorry to hear he had eventually sold up the business as too great a strain on his health and time.

The place is still there under new management and we, of course, are still customers. The waiting room is now presided over by a ginger cat that someone left for treatment then never picked up. It wanders freely and fearlessly, disdainfully thumping terrified dogs on the snout, adding injury to the terror of a trip to the V.E.T. Some days it hops up to sit on your lap, other days ignores you completely. Such are cats.

So if the budgie is off the perch or the pussycat has a runny eye, you could do worse than a visit to Tallaght Village. Just mind where you're walking. You never know what you might be stepping on.

Vodafone on the ball again

28 days to get from my shed door to the computer in the dining room. The picture, taken on my mobile phone, was sent by the phone to my email address on 23/12/2006 but only arrived by email on 17/01/2007. The cat, as often happens with cats, was obviously stuck somewhere for all that time. I wonder where she went?

The indignity of it all

"First of all, " she said, "You lock me in a strange bedroom... Okay, so there was food, water, clean litter trays and a comfortable bed, but that's not the point...

"Then you let a monkey kitten* into the bedroom I usually occupy and let it stay there all night.

"Then you expect me to wait for my breakfast?

"It just isn't good enough, you know..?"

*All adult cats think of humans as monkeys, unless they want something from them, in which case they sometimes think of themselves as kittens and the human as a temporary, honorary Mammy cat. A monkey kitten is a human baby.

Not life and death

I dropped into work for half and hour after Nell's funeral to check everything was okay, then took some time to sit and contemplate the matter of life and death for the afternoon. The tent-like gazebo is not as securely fixed to the ground as I should like this time, as I was under orders to take account of a need for clean, dry clothes and keep it out of the way of the washing line. So it's kind of mated with one of the sheds to one side, and standing unsecured on concrete slabs on the other. Also, the breeze is noticeably stronger than on its previous outing.

In any case, a few creaks and occasional flapping noises notwithstanding, it was a hot afternoon in Dublin yesterday. The cats were being polite by sitting with me, but preferred the cooler, deeper shade of the shrubbery into which they returned after 20 minutes or so.

We had a solemn type of day what with everything.

Then in the evening time as I was coming out to the kitchen I saw the gazebo shudder and quake as it about to take off. For a second, I thought the wind had really picked up and the whole thing was heading away into the blue yonder. Then I realised the breeze was no stronger than earlier. Instead, our black cat was having great fun using the roof as a trampoline. He jumped from the shed roof onto the green vynyl and then pogo-ed at random about the place, causing the crazy rocking. All I could see between jumps was the tips of two black ears poking over one of the roof ribs.

I called the rest of the family to watch but he heard us moving about and knowing well that he was being a naughty puss he scooted to unforbidden territory down on the ground. Fecker. I had to tighten up a few bits, but no harm done. Must keep an eye on his antics in case he punches any holes.

You can always rely on a cat to liven things up.

Related post: B&Q Gazebo instructions

Industrious Saturday

A quiet start to the day here so far. Herself, who has to go to work for part of Saturday morning, found that the boss had managed to go on leave without arranging for another boss. And as a boss must be on hand to set everyone else in motion, work couldn't begin for two hours after the usual startup time until a new boss was co-opted in. So she'll be late home.

I've been occupying myself with breakfasting and finding out how to get around the Blogger bug that prevented me uploading images these past couple of days. It appears that if you upload an image before posting any text, it will work. Simple work-around, but as ever tough to find an answer.

The doorbell rang about an hour ago and I could see a car and a kid in the driveway through the glass, so, wondering who the heck this was I opened the door to find a man and a kid and a car.

"Have I got the wrong house?" the man asks.

"I don't know. Who are you looking for?"

When we established no-one he was looking for lived here, he looked a little angrily at the kid, then asked if a named neighbour's house was nearby. I directed him and went back to doing nothing.

Then the cat insisted I fix the loose hinge on the door to his shed, so I managed that. I had intended posting a picture of a screwdriver to illustrate the intense level of industry, but I happened upon a different type of image of a screwdriver and it looked more interesting.

Herself will be frazzled when she finally gets home. I shall arrange for coffee and a bun and put on my best listening ears I think. She can supply the cigarettes.

Bee fur and cat food

Our black cat, who is an Einstein among felines when it comes to everything else, is completely daw-brained when it comes to bees. He knows they have stingers, because he sat with one paw held up like a cartoon sore-thumb all evening last summer after getting stung. But there's something about a buzzing, randomly flying bundle of stripy black and yellow fur that just can't be resisted by him. As soon as he sees one, he bounces off down the garden, swatting wildly at the air.

Last night, as I was juggling plates and dishes of cat food and carrying a box of cat biscuits between my teeth, I opened the cats' shed door to discover that inside was a large bumblebee flying about in a holding pattern awaiting landing instructions. It was obviously confused (as we all are) by the red Axminster carpet hanging on the gable wall, because it was hovering within an inch or two of it looking for nectar in the flowery pattern. Not finding any, it turned towards the light to leave the shed, only to find its path blocked by a pane of window glass. So, it zig-zagged about pondering how to find its way home from this lost position.

The cats were dancing about impatiently at my feet. It just wasn't the routine that I pile dishes high with delicious duck feet and fishguts in jelly, only to stand still for five minutes. They wanted grub and they wanted it now!

I held the door open as wide as it would go and propped it with a bamboo cane, hoping the visitor would take the hint and leave. It works for the Parish Priest, after all.

The bee buzzed about a bit, then managed a kind of insect-like shrug and dropped down to the level of the cats' bedding.

"Oh no!" I said, as the little bugger nipped in neatly through the open doorway in the side of the great big cardboard box into which the cats retire at night. I had a mental picture of the weary flier finding a nice comfortable fold of blanket and settling down for a snooze. And another picture of two sore, fat-lipped cats in the morning.

I reached for another cane and started beating about the box. This was not what the cats had signed up for so they scarpered smartly. No sign of the squatter.

"Bugger!"

I slammed the door and left things for a half hour. The cats were not impressed.

Finally, I went back to see if yer man was out of the scratcher yet and sure enough, there he was on final approach again.

"Oi! Goggles! Over here!"

You'd swear the little fecker heard me, because this time he did a 180-degree turn and flew half way out the door, tasted the air, and went back into the shed. I waited with bated breath while he did it a second time. As soon as he was anyway clear of its swing, I slammed the door shut again. He buzzed off over the rooftop and was gone.

"Bloody hell. The things I do for these feckin' cats!"

They looked at me with an "About time" expression and slipped inside.

With my luck, someone probably stood on that bee five minutes after I released it.

When crapping rings about me later, doubtless I'll regret it

I arrived home this evening to find a bowl of grapes in the kitchen. Even in March, we're still finding packets and boxes of Christmas goodies and sharing them out, so something nice and edible is nothing new here. Fruit, however, is a rarity. And I like grapes. Even if they don't like me.

I went out to feed the cats and popped a grape into my mouth in passing.

"Mmmm...! Nice."

The cats eyed me with that expression only they can have, which means:

"What is the f**king monkey saying now? Doesn't he know we are commanding him to serve us meat? Quit stalling, Monkey! We are not amused."

On the way back in, I stole another grape.

And while switching on the oven, there was an excuse to pass by and purloin another. And when pulling down the shades, another. And plugging in the computer, another. And switching on the sitting room light another. And coming back in to put my password into Windows, another. And checking the oven, another. And coming back in to write something for the Blog, another.

I think I'll have to start using the double-doors to the living room rather than pass them by again. My constitution is not up to healthy living, and I shall have to suffer the grapes of wrath in a few hours when my body finds out I'm not swallowing my accustomed lard.