Life, the Universe and Everything

Jamie and I were just out in the garden, I was sitting on the bench and Crotchy jumped up and sat on my knee, kneading my cardigan with his front paws and purring his head off as I stroked him. He did this quite a lot last night as well, when I was outside chatting with Caro.

I asked Jamie what we were going to do about him, because we need a permanent solution. The most sensible option would be to call Cats Protection and have them re-home him. However, Crotchy's been a part of our lives for 4 years almost now, and we're as much attached to him as we are to our own cats. Neither of us have the heart to just hand him over to a complete stranger, to never see him again. So we've decided. We're going to make a massive effort over the summer to integrate Crotchy into our house. Fidget and Crotchy get on perfectly well outside the house, its just inside the house where Fidget gets a bit territorial about the whole affair.

I've just done some reading up online about integrating a new cat into the household, and I think it might be possible. Especially with Jamie home during the day for the forseeable. The study upstairs (Andy's bedroom, as was) is pretty isolated from the rest of the house, because of our ridiculous cowboy job hallway. So its perfect as a "safe" room for Crotchy, especially as we cleaned it up and hoovered etc the other day so it was fit for human habitation at the weekend. So its not so much filled with Fidget's hair and so on, but still smells of him enough to get Crotchy used to it. And as they already know and recognise each other, its just going to be a patience game, slowly integrating Crotchy's smells into the rest of the house.

We think we'll keep Crotchy out of our bedroom as much as we can though, keep that as Fidget's "safe" room.

I think where we've gone wrong before, is we've shut him in the bathroom/kitchen, so the place where Fidget normally gets fed is the area which ends up smelling of Crotchy. Which is obviously not going to go down well with the Fidget.

If it does work out though, we're going to have to rename him. Or at least, just pretend to rename him so that when I take him to the vet to get him checked out, I don't have to answer the "what is your cat's name?" question with "Crotchspider!". Will most likely shorten that to Spider, although I'm not keen on that because I already have a cat called Spider who has a small place in my heart, and I don't want to duplicate (my next door neighbours when I was young had a three legged tabby called Spider). So, any suggestions welcome for my little big nosed blue boy.

Here's a picture or two, to inspire you:
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I failed to tell you this story when I got into work, even after spending my cycle in composing the post in my head. So now you get the less pretty, shorter version as I scramble to get the words down before I go for a post-gym shower.

Those of you who have visited my house, or seen enough pictures, will get the gist of the layout of these terraces. Long narrow properties, with bathrooms and kitchens extending out of the back of the standard 2-up 2-down living and bedrooms. In our case, our ground floor extends for quite a way, and from our bedroom, the back window of the tiny half-bedroom directly above the kitchen looks out over the vast square expanse of the bathroom roof.

Since our house has become a fashionable hotspot for up and coming stray cats to get a sneaky warm snooze and a bit of grub, we have taken to opening this upstairs window for the cat while we are away from the house, rather than the downstairs one, on the basis that Crotchspider can't get up on the roof anymore (we don't think so anyway). Fidget is very used to this now, although if he's out when we're in the house, he will sit forlornly on the dining room windowsill waiting quietly for someone to let him in, rather than go upstairs and let himself in, as it were (note - he doesnt cry or scratch the door or anything, he just sits there silently. when its dark, seeing a black cat sitting in the unlit alleyway can be difficult. he doesnt seem to have realised this yet).

This morning, I was eating my breakfast at the dining table, in the company of Mr Fidget who, having finished his breakfast, was looking out of the window deciding if he wanted to go out or not. All of a sudden, quite unexpectedly, his ears flattened against his head and he let out this unearthly howl. I recognised the noise as "There's a cat I don't like sitting in my alleyway. How dare it!" but the reaction was a little over the top for the usual suspect - Fidget doesnt really get that agitated by Crotchspider anymore unless he's being really persistant. So I got up, leaned over and saw next doors ginger boy peering interestedly in through my back door. He heard me move (paper thin walls!) and ran a short way down the alley, then stopped to look at me. He has the most gorgeous, innocent and curious face. Almost like he doesnt realise when he's being an idiot. Anyway, he buggered off down the path, so I resumed eating and Fidget resumed his staring.

Once I'd finished, there was no sign of him. I took Fidget upstairs, thinking "I will let him out upstairs and then he wont instantly run into the other cat and start fighting". Hmmm. How wrong can one be?

We have a bedside cabinet thing in front of the window, to help Fidget get in and out. I put him down on that, and he was instantly up, face pressed against the glass as I opened the window. He jumped up onto the windowsill, and stopped, half in and half out. Still staring intently. I leaned over, looked out, and who should I see on the bathroom roof, but next door's cat! He was right near the edge, over the alleyway side. Fidget wasn't moving, so I stroked him a couple of times (it gives him the courage to stand up for himself, instead of making me do it). He jumped down, ran over to the other cat, and stopped about a foot away from him. The other cat hissed rather ferociously, and backed away until he was very precariously balanced on the edge of the roof. Fidget inched closer, the ginger tom hissed again, so Fidget smacked him round the head and pushed him off the roof! I heard his wail of despair, and an almighty thump as he hit the floor. I raced downstairs, but he had moved by the time I got to the window. So then I had to go outside and check to make sure he was ok.

Which of course he was. He was pottering round the garden, being curious at things, as if nothing had happened. While Fidget sat and sulked on the roof corner.

I have no idea what happened after that, as I had to go to work, but I did see the ginger cat leaving the garden so I'm assuming Fidget eventually came down and got on with things.

However, I did notice as well, that as I was leaving, Crotchspider also turned up and was sitting by the back door!

Mrs Caro has laid down a gauntlet. I must repond!

The challenge? Which ginger kitteh is which? Lets see how we do... Fortunately, all the ones with ginger pies in have captions, so I am able to share some funny Lolcats as well!

 

Wonder how well I've done? I'm sure Caro will correct me later on (I will make her, in fact, since she is at my mercy this evening).

So the rearranging of the bedroom furniture went fairly well in the end, we're both pleased with the end result. However, I'm still struggling to get in a full night's sleep, which is very irritating. Saturday night was by far the worst night I've had in a good while, hardly slept a wink, between Jamie's snoring and Fidget's rather irritating "lets go exploring the bedroom in the middle of the night" antics. Last night was better, but I still woke up more times than I'm used to (the one time I get woken up by Fidget wanting a cuddle under the duvet I don't mind so much). We think Jamie may be subconsciously afraid of the lack of wall to his right, as when I woke up this morning I was on my side facing out of the bed, but very close to the edge. Jamie was on his side, facing away from me, but with his back right up against mine with miles of space on the other side.

So tonight we are going to see if we should sleep the other way around. Which may be a blessing in more than one way, as Fidget tends to wake up the person on the left of the bed for cuddles in the night, so sleeping on the other side I would avoid that as well.

Other than furniture moving, cleaning and general sneeziness from the dust, the weekend consisted of indulgent food (fry-ups, biscuits, ice-cream and home-made fish and chips among the offerings), lots of Guinness (well, for Jamie, anyway), much rugby, some painting of miniatures (I did my night goblin fanatics, Jamie started his handgunners) and the watching of Sweeney Todd.

Among the failed acheivements was me not dying my hair, us not making it as far as the gym all weekend and us not having done any laundry or tidying up downstairs. But considering what we did get done, this isn't really all that bad.

This week is mostly all about getting back into the habit of doing things. Going to the gym. Not eating too much crap. Tidying up some more. Boss is on holiday so work should be quiet, which is handy given how tired I am. Highlights of the week are going to include the first episode of Battlestar Galactica new series (or second half of last series, if you want to look at it like that), and the rugby at the weekend. Also, Jamie had a surprise phone call from one of his oldest friends the other day, so on Sunday we are going to go and see him and his fiance as well, which will be interesting.