Sorry for misleading you.
To explain, I was just concluding a series of posts about an
illness I’m busy getting over. Enough said. At the end of the last post (blows
trumpet) I said I’d give you a break from the illness updates and threw in
how Puddy, “... had been up to all sorts and you needed to be told.”
Here’s a couple of reasons for this patent untruth.
Firstly, quite a few people seem to like the posts about the
cat. I suppose they show a rare human side to me. Also, in fairness, Puddy has
provided me with some darned good stories. Not least how she died, was retrieved, stiff and cold, from the roadside, placed in the coal bunker on a purple blanket
and then came back to life (sort of). You can get that story by clicking
here if you want to. It’s got a bit of an Easter vibe about it, now that I
think of it.
Secondly, it’s like the ending of Back to the Future. In
that finale, Doc comes back from the future, all geared up in spacy gear, in
his funked-up flying DeLorean. “It’s your kids,” Doc pants, “Something must be
done about your kids.” It’s a line that sets up the whole new adventure to
come, a future world of possibilities. So, yes, I did the same with the cat.
The second Back to the Future was a load of old cobblers and so is today’s post.
But the hook? The hook was good, man.
So, accepting that there are no amazing tales to tell, what
of Puddy? How fares she?
At the moment, she’s sleeping soundly in the front hall in
her basket with one of those heating pad things under her, even though it’s not
all that cold. These days, she spends as much time in the house as she likes.
She generally spends most of her indoors time sleeping but, when she’s awake,
she likes to be out in the neighbourhood, arguing with the other cats and haranguing
the local wildlife. When not asleep and indoors, she watches telly, studies the
fire, rolls around, and stretches out and chases treats across the room with a
scary intensity.
We kind of thought she would become a more tactile cat as
the years progressed and maybe that will still happen. But I wouldn’t bet on
it. Puddy is a detached cat in almost all respects. She shows involvement by
the aforementioned rolling around, occasional rubbing against calves at
mealtimes, and a very rare low volume meow when something important needs to be
imparted. But she does not welcome touch or fusses or any kind of direct human
contact. With one notable exception, Patricia. Patricia is, of course, my lovely wife. Puddy permits gentle head
fussing from Trish and certainly seems to enjoy and welcome it. Anyone else had
better approach her at their peril.
Puddy… well she’s a cat, isn’t she? We never had one before
so everything she does is like the first time any cat in the world did anything
of the sort. Which we know is not true but still sometimes it seems so. When
she licks her paw and repeatedly washes her face with it, that’s the greatest
thing ever. That and a hundred other stupid little things. She also manages to
do exactly what you don’t want her to do at the exact time you least want her
to do it.
I just looked back over blog posts and it’s five years this
weekend since Puddy had her litter in our garage. That was the moment it all
began for Trish and the Cat and me. It’s been a silly, infuriating, and lovely
time and one senses the cat could have taken or left it all without too much
anxiety either way. Still she’s been well cared-for and that will continue to
be the case for as long as we have her.
So, there you go, nothing new on the Puddy front. I got you here on false pretences. Sorry about that.
Except… wait… maybe there is one tiny
thing.
The most relevant new development in the Puddy saga? Did you
notice it? It came right back there in the very first line of this post. Puddy
is no longer the semi-feral cat who strayed into our garage and had kittens. No
longer the errant street cat who pissed in my car when I accidentally left the
door open.
No. Puddy is our cat now
