Fiona Duff: The cat sat on the mat – and everywhere it liked
What is it with cats and their ability always to be in the wrong place? Many years ago we had a bit of a mouse problem. The little blighters seemed to find a new way into the food cupboard despite our valiant efforts to block up every hole in skirting boards and other points of entry. So we welcomed Rita the Mouse-Eater into our home.
She always was a bit of a strange creature – I think it may have been her early kitten-hood. Maybe I should have had a few worries when I went to view her and found that she and her sibling were kept in a drawer under a divan bed.
To begin with she spent her time looking for little cubby holes in which to hide; behind the bookcase was a favourite.
As she grew older her favourite pastime was tormenting our dog. That poor thing could never work out whether she wanted to stroke herself against him or scratch him on the backside.
It was the same with us as one minute she would purr as you caressed her fur, the next she would bite your hand and run away.
However, the mice quickly found out that there was a feline in our home and they scarpered pretty quickly, never to be seen again.
Every so often she finds one in the garden and brings that in to tease and ‘play’ with until the poor thing is so terrified that it keels over.
The thing is that she is incredibly fluffy and I spend my time vaccuming carpets and using a hair remover on cushions. Right now she is asleep on the ironing board which is rather annoying to say the least.
If I leave anything out – from clothes to cardboard boxes – that is where you will find her snoozing. And moulting.
Most alarmingly at one point she took to having a nap on my laptop keyboard with near disastrous results and for a while I thought that I had lost my trusty little machine forever.
On top of all this, when she isn’t asleep, which seems to be about 80 per cent of the time, she will be under my feet.
I swear she prays for me to trip over her, not realising that without me she would starve to death.
If I ever get another I shall look into the availability of Sphynx cats.