To Haunt or RIP

Had a bit of a revelation whilst on my way to bed somewhat sozzled.

Thinking about what life/death is going to be like when I'm brown bread.

We always say RIP when someone has shrugged off their mortal wossname, but who says that's what we actually want out of life ... er death. I mean, it's a bit boring just lying there all peaceful like.

Methinks I need to consider if it's worth passing on ... kicking the bucket ... whatever, I'm sure I could find something better to do ... I think I'd prefer to do a bit of haunting ... I'll lie here now and practice my tele-thingy skills.

I'll get the cat  - aka Miss Tia Pussykins - to get off me, just by looking at her because I'm hot, hot, HOT ... doesn't she realise I'm having a lady power surge, and my job in life - whilst I'm here - is not to keep her undercarriage warm ... hmmm, that's not working ...

Deaf Little Miss Tia Pussykins

Not sure whether to be relieved that I no longer think Miss Tia Pussykins is senile, or ashamed that I didn't spot sooner that she was deaf.

It wasn't until last week that all the signs of deafness finally got through to me ... although cats are notoriously clever at hiding disabilities.

I'd accused her of being ignorant when she didn't look up when I spoke to her. I knew it made her jump when I stroked her if she was asleep ... and she sleeps very deeply in her quiet little world.

Being in the caravan has also hidden her deafness because everything shakes, rattles and rolls with the smallest movement ... unless it's me moving, as I'm light footed.

Fast aeroplanes still faze her - we vibrate - but my Dyson doesn't bother her until I'm cleaning right up to where she is.

No wonder she cries - loudly - in the night when she doesn't know where we are. As soon as I go in to fetch her she greets me with a happy little meow ... although I think she's lost her 'trill', I've not heard that for a while ... she still purrs a lot though.

We'll have to see how she fares at home where the floors downstairs are concrete. She does mostly live upstairs though.

In herself she's quite well, loves her treats and hasn't lost any weight. Not at all bony and she still bounces around like a kitten at times.

She doesn't go out much now, this is a relief as the outside world is full of danger to a deaf cat ... particularly one that previously had very good hearing.

It also explains why she's as clingy as she is, she rarely leaves my side now and is always pleased when my grumpy old man comes back in. She likes to sit between us ...  bless her little cotton socks.

We still talk to her as if she could hear us, I'm sure she'd panic more if she didn't see our lips move ... she may even be able to lip-read up to a point.

We do a lot of slow blinking at one another now to say "I love you" ... but it doesn't stop me saying it to her out loud.

Now, if only she'd wear an hearing aid ... and don't think I haven't tried her with my Mr Grumpy's when he went to bed one night...

Tia And Her Little Foibles

Tia in summer

It's well known among my friends that our cat is delicate, she is difficult to feed except when we're in the tin hut. This led us to believe that she was happy there and miserable at home. There is a tinge of truth in this, because although she stands her ground against other cats when we're away, she isn't so confident in her home territory.

We took her for her yearly overhaul at the vets in November, as the date got closer for her appointment I was filled with dread. She ate little and often brought it back up and I could see her getting thinner - this happens every late autumn/winter as she goes into near hibernation. Tuna fish to the rescue.

I could tell the vet wasn't happy when he started feeling her abdomen then decided to fetch the scales to weigh her, she had been weighed before so he knew she was generally a lightweight. I explained that she'd been sick a couple of times over the weekend and he agreed that this could be the problem. Everything else, except her weight was fine.

After this I decided to cruise t'Interweb to see if it'd be OK for her diet to be largely made up of tuna fish as she couldn't resist it ... oh heck! It isn't, apparently it's bad for them. I searched further and also discovered that ALL dried cat food, including the most expensive ones are a load of crap as they are mostly made up of vegetable protein - no good to cats at all - and not meat, therefore the missing important vitamins and stuff [taurine], they put in after.

Cats cannot ever be vegetarians, they would die. So why do we force feed them vegetable protein and carbohydrates. We only have dry cat food for our convenience and not for the health or well-being of the cat. Hmm, did you know that in the 1980's dry cat food was responsible for cats going blind and many also died from heart failure. Not to mention damage to their bladders and kidneys - even now - through lack of water/dehydration, because cats have a low thirst drive, in the wild they would naturally get their fluids from their prey/victims - yuck.

Though very interesting, this was not helping in my quest to get Tia back up to her summer weight. Hmm, raw meat ... there's places on t'Interweb I can buy it from especially for cats, but it's mostly rabbit - which when I've bought it tinned, she doesn't like, so is it worth trying? Chicken, she's not over-fussed, she does like beef ... expensive taste, my cat.

I also discovered that most tinned cat food is fairly rubbishy too as they contain meat derivatives ... translated, the sweepings off the floor, I have to look for actual meat in the ingredients, oh joy. I had a look on Asda's shelves ... interesting.

While I was doing all this research for my bulimic pussy cat, I thought I may as well go the whole hog and look at cat litter, just to see which is the best kind. Although she's not a house cat, such is her lack of territory confidence, that even on the occasions she does venture out - weather permitting - she comes back in to use her litter tray.

My preference has always been the wood pellet stuff, it always seems clean and rarely smells ... although that could be down to the frequency it gets changed, and every 'number two' is removed immediately, upon the cat's insistence. She runs around the house like a loony until the offending item is removed.

I had noticed that even after only two days of fresh cat litter, she'd be looking at her tray and cocking her nose up, even though I could smell nothing. Time for a change.

Hmm, clumping litter - although unsafe for kittens and positively deadly according to one person on the internet [all references point to the same person] - might be worth a try.

Off we went to Asda - yes it was the same visit where I spent an age reading cat food ingredients and slamming tins back on the shelf - where we rummaged among the choices of litter and came across Catsan clumping litter, but, ouch the price for the size of the bag ... until I lifted it. It was heavy for the size.

Oh heck, I've just drifted off into the blow by blow style of writing, haven't I?

We got home, disinfected the litter tray and put in half a ton of cat litter ... the moment of truth. Her pussyship inspected it, stirred it around, decided that it'd do and proceeded to use it. The look on her face when she turned around to bury the wee was priceless, it had vanished [to her].

Can you believe that watching a cat use her tray was more interesting than watching the telly? And we were fighting over who was going to scoop out the 'dumpling' of wee. There wasn't a trace of it left behind.

Then we became aware of something we hadn't expected. Tia was meowing for food, which is fairly normal, but she ate it - which isn't. She mostly sniffs it, licks off the jelly - at a push - and stalks off. But then she wanted more and she kept using the tray ... up to five times a day.

Our regime now, is that we remove all 'dumplings' and 'sausages' immediately - because we have no choice, her pussyship sees to that - then empty out the tray twice weekly and disinfect everything, because a big pussy wee tends to hit the bottom, although not enough to wet it or stick. We then put the litter back in because it's still relatively clean [madam is happy with it] and top up with fresh.

In my zest for trying to find something she may eat - and keep down - I had already spent a small fortune on micro-tins of the choicest cat food. After less than two weeks, she's back up to her summer weight, so I will now go and buy the more ordinary stuff and gradually wean her off [or certainly down] the budget busting variety of food she's become accustomed to.

No, I didn't suspect any connection between not eating/vomiting and - a cat's - litter preference. Although we have a very happy cat now, I think we've made a rod for MY own back. As not only am I annoyed out of bed to empty all offending items from the litter tray, she has now taken to rousing me from my slumbers to watch her in pooing action. I suppose it serves us right for praising her every time she used it during daylight hours.

Talk about potty training ...

My Cat's Rescue

I watched ‘The Deep’ in a morose ‘when-I-watched-this-last-week-my-cat-was-here’ kind of way. When out of the blue I announced I was going for a walk to find her. Bearing in mind we'd already done this Saturday evening, early Sunday morning and the grumpy old man has since worn a furrow in the footpath with how many times he's walked round asking people if they've seen her.

We went down Bridge Street [it's a long way round yet] passing three cats on our way to the recreation ground. As soon as we got there I started whistling and shouting her name ... oooh, I was sure I could hear something on Heanor Haulage land.

We went round the corner toward the bridge still shouting and listening [between the trains - they were exceptionally loud that night], but I could no longer hear anything. Hmm, so that means she wasn't in one of the Asda containers.

The grumpy old man couldn't hear anything at all, was I going doolally? ‘Are you wearing your hearing aid?’ ... ‘No’ ... ‘Well we'll go back for it then, I need you to hear it too’.

Back home we went, there was a definite spring in my step now. The conversation on the way: ‘Are you sure it was her?’ ... ‘No, but it was definitely a cat in distress and why would it meow every time I shouted? It must be her’ ... ‘What shall we do if you're sure it's her?’ ... ‘Ask again tomorrow if we can go on HH land.’

We set off again, one of us armed with better hearing, I was striding out and the GOM was sort of lagging behind. By the time we got there, the GOM realised that we could have gone in the car - what was I thinking? He was exhausted, he's no spring chicken and he'd already covered miles [albeit the same few miles] looking for her.

 
He heard her before we even had chance to shout her name. That was it, we were both convinced - she was there.

Now, we just happened to know where there was a sneaky way onto HH land [having observed a bit of activity last weekend]. We went to check out this hole in the fence and before I knew where I was, I'd had one of my little ‘moments’ and was to be found tiptoeing across HH yard, leaving the GOM at the fence telling my rear quarters that I could be in trouble if I got caught … I was of course, wearing my ultra-bright-ideal-for-breaking-in-and-trespassing-cream-fleece.

I negotiated around the crane bits and across to the shunter ... whistled, shouted [whispered], no not here ... I made my way to the big green thing aka the old boiler, no not here ... off to the big red thing aka the diesel tank. Oh, I can hear her back toward the fence.

There was a HH trailer covered in tarpaulin, I whispered ‘Tia, are you in there?’ ... ‘Meow!!’

I pulled at the tarpaulin, and got it up far enough to see two huge eyes and her blue daisy collar in the torchlight. Bugger it! If there had been HH's old lights the next bit would have been easy [having since seen the photos of the trailer]. As it was I was practically working in the dark - the torch I was using was next to useless - and I couldn't find how to loosen the cover. I ended up struggling to hold it up with one hand and dragging the cat out with the other.

She started purring, even though I'd nearly dislocated all her joints pulling her out, she was a bag of bones, never very heavy at any time. As my neighbour has often put it 'Tia eats to live', where her cats 'live to eat'.

I made my way back along the crane parts, I shouted [in a loud whisper] to the GOM to tell him to shout back to direct me as I couldn't find where I needed to be ... oh a bit further yet ... and a bit more ... oh heck, a bit more ... then I turned to the fence stepping over and around scrap.
 

I reached the hole in pitch dark where I'd left poor old grumpy worrying. ‘You've never got her’ ... ‘I have’. He took her from me while I had an argument with the razor wire. It was just after this that the pain hit, I thought the top of my head was going to explode, I had to sit down, such was the pain. I think it must have been the build up of stress suddenly being released.

We made our way back home - again - it's a chuffing long way with a wriggly, purring cat, half of me wishes they'd hurry up with that ramp to the bridge [although doing the footpath is what scared her into hiding], the other half of me is dreading it being open for the dregs of Langley Mill to cause trouble again.

Half way up Bridge Street I could see my neighbour out with her torch, she was calling and listening at the storage containers just over from the ‘turnaround’ while it was quiet. She was delighted to see we'd got her back.

Tia was starving! I’ve never known her eat so much, there must have been water where she was as she didn’t want a drink. She smelt awful, a mixture of diesel and rubber, I helped her out by wiping her with damp kitchen towel, licking that muck off would have made her sick. I got no sleep that night, she was non-stop purring, washing, eating and then going to the loo - thank heaven for cat litter.

I'd just like to say that if we'd been allowed to go on HH land via Asda's bit, we'd have found her in minutes and although I've been somewhat scathing of HH [yes I have], we were always allowed to go and fetch her back by the gate man - this was whenever she threw a ‘why-did-you-abandon-me- [with the neighbour] -and-I'm-not-coming-back-so-there’ wobbly - he knew all the cats that routinely ‘hung out’ in the buildings and on the back yard. Hmm, I think I'd better apologise here to Mr HH for trespassing - and even though I'm not a rule breaker, I'd do it again if I had to.

I've just read and watched with horror that twat of a woman who deliberately put a cat into a wheelie bin, apparently - at the time of reading - this was not considered by the police to be a ‘criminal offence’, presumably leaving the RSPCA to foot the bill of any proceedings against her. I hope because of this couldn't care less attitude that there aren't a spate of copycat ‘non-criminal offences’ made toward cats or indeed any animals. At least my cat's imprisonment was not malicious.

Tia didn’t go out for three days ... Saturday morning, off she went ... tea-time, we're packed and waiting to take her to the seaside for some peace and quiet - like the good cat servants we are. ‘Lets take some Asda photos and look for her, I can't stand waiting here any longer’. Half way between the bridge and the recreation ground … ‘Meow!?! This little head pops out of a rusty old girder/pipe doo dah next to the fence on HH land. I just give in …

Broken Promises?

Hmm, now how can I put this? Ahem, remember all those promises I made in my last post ... well, I don't have to keep them. I've just reread it to check how it was worded - yes, some of it was cringe making, soppy drivel. So bad I nearly deleted it, but hey that's not fair, I sometimes need reminding how stupid I am over a cat [ah bless, she's adorable].

But, oh dear - because of a mere technicality, I can carry on writing drivel ... so get used to it.

Although:

1. I haven't yet played solitaire on my windows mobile phone [my fingers are starting to twitch].
2. I've been to have my hair cut - oh, by at least a millimetre. Hmm, what other promises did I make? I'll just have another look ...
3. HALF MY WAGES!?! EVERY WEEK!! Chuffing nora, I didn't even put how long for!

Well, I've already made a donation at the 'Missing Pets Register' and I'll cruise t'Interweb in the next few days to see who I think most deserves half of my NEXT weeks wage, because even though I am exempt from keeping my promises as Tia DID NOT actually come home, I feel it's the least I can do. I'll also buy cat and dog food the next few times I go shopping at Morrisons to put in the donation bins.

I'll just say now that I really had no intention of actually publishing my last post, I wrote it just for me ... right up until someone took it upon himself - egged on by his equally twattish buddies no doubt - to phone me [number withheld] to say he'd got Tia ... one day this bunch of dillops may grow up and realise how cruel that was ... nevertheless, it was at that point that I inserted the phone call into the post and decided to publish.

I'll write all about her return - just as soon as I can get rid of this tension headache - in the next exciting instalment of my blog ...

My Cat Tia Is Missing

This will hopefully be my last blog post ... it's just one of many promises I've made over the last few days, if only my cat comes back.

The first promise was that if I was to win the game of solitaire I was playing on my mobile phone [Saturday], then she was sure to come back. I won the game and subsequently promised not to waste any more time playing it ... I have kept this promise.

The second promise was that if she was to return by the end of the day [Sunday] then I would have my hair cut short ... I am growing it, it's my one vanity, it's thick and curly [although insane at this point of growing].

The third promise was to donate half my wages to charities every week if she was to return by the end of the day [yesterday].

I have now registered her as a missing pet, it took me three days to do this because I refused to believe she was gone.

She was thoroughly stressed out both Thursday and Friday mornings, they were breaking the ground up [very close to us] in an earth shattering way, ready for the new footpath to the bridge. As soon as I got up [she feels safe while I'm in bed] she ran into the back bedroom and jumped through the window onto the kitchen roof, this was Friday morning. When we're home she routinely goes out for the day but knocks on the door at tea-time.

Yesterday was awful ... our main hope was that she'd gone to hide in one of the Asda storage containers, and of course no-one was working Sunday. The grumpy old man [who incidentally is as upset as I am], asked on the building site if he could go with one of them to check to see if she was hiding in a container - on Heanor Haulage land, where she's always hung out. We've had to go more than once to fetch her back when she's been left at home alone in the last few years.

The GOM was told he couldn't go on the site, but the site manager said he'd check himself - fair enough, it's a busy site, although the containers are well away from the Asda building - I can practically reach one of them [with a fairly long stick] over my neighbours fence. The main reason the GOM wanted to check himself is because if she is hiding in one of them, she'll hide from anyone unfamiliar but make a heck of a row if he calls her name and whistles her from close by.

I'm listening so hard for the jingle of her bell that my ears are aching, this isn't helped by my neighbours cats who jingle up and down the entry every five minutes, although it's a slightly different tone. I'd decided to lie down for five minutes yesterday afternoon - I'd been pacing from room to room, half the night and all day, up and downstairs to check through the windows - when I heard meowing at the back door, I shot up and ran to look through the window, convinced she was back, only to see my neighbours cat [he's been inherited and not sure where he lives yet]. This did nothing for my headache and I wept buckets.

I know there are many people who have had far worse happen to them, but I'm one of those sad, childless women [not by choice] who has always had a pet as a baby substitute - I've had dogs die and I've mourned them but the disappearance of my cat is agony.

The list of things I miss about her are endless, but the first thing on it, is how she insisted I put my arm around her in bed at night, and if she woke to find I was facing the wrong way [towards the GOM], she'd pat me on the shoulder - getting a bit more insistent with each pat [claws], until I woke up and turned back to face her.

What I really didn't need was some smart alec bastard phoning me up from Queen Street rec to tell me that they'd got my cat and had found her at Tesco Heanor! I was half expecting calls like this as the GOM has just put put posters up about her being missing.

My last promise if she comes back is to stop annoying people by writing this blog. So if you see a chunky woman with very, very short blonde hair, dressed in rags [due to the charitable donations] ... but with a huge grin walking around Langley Mill, it'll be me - with Tia safe at home ...

..................................................................................


Update ... Tia is home!!

Foxes, Cats and Birds

My neighbour told me the Sunday before Christmas that she’d looked through her bedroom window a few nights before and seen a fox on the street. That same night I was gazing at the snowy expanse of Heanor Haulages back yard when I saw what I first assumed was a large cat, then realised it was a fox.

I know foxes are quite common in urban areas so it should come as no great surprise to see them. At my last address - which was described as ‘semi-rural’ we saw a fox virtually every evening at 9.00ish going back towards the fields.

Last night, I was again looking through the back bedroom window waiting for my computer to power down when I saw two foxes together, then one went towards Dean Street and the other turned to go toward the railway lines.

So not only do I have to worry about whether or not the birds are getting enough to eat - and it’s a constant battle on our back yards with the robin chasing away all comers including blackbirds, house sparrows, hedge sparrows, a wren, collared dove, 2 bullfinches and a chaffinch. All, that is except the great tits and blue tits who are too nippy for him, and the pigeons who just sit and ignore him as he keeps dive bombing them, I wonder, does he get enough to eat after all his exercise? - I now have to worry about the foxes starving, oh dear.

I harboured notions of secretly feeding them but that would put next doors guinea pig at risk and anyway the minute our back door opens, next doors cat is in like a flash. Every night just before we go to bed he knocks on the door for a snack and a drink of milk, he knows I'm a soft touch. I usually put my cat's barely touched food out for him or on the rare event that she is entirely happy with the food she’s been offered and hasn’t left most of it in disgust I'll give him cat biscuits.

Cat food that was her very favourite - yum, yum, more - only a couple of weeks ago, now merely gets sniffed at while I receive a glare that speaks volumes about ‘bad cat servant, expecting her to eat such utter garbage’. Garbage which costs 68p a micro-tin for her pussy-ship to turn her nose up at!

She knows that after three days of this ‘why are you trying to poison me with this reject dog food?’ [her thoughts not mine, it smells and looks delicious], that I’ll give in and say the magic word ‘TUNA’ while waving the tin opener at her. I have to give in to her whims because she literally wastes away before my eyes - unless she deliberately breathes in whenever I glance in her direction - she is cunning.

Of course I’ll be glued to the window tonight in the hope of seeing both foxes again, I didn’t expect to see two together as I thought they were loners, just shows you what I know doesn’t it, but I live and learn …