At rest

At rest

Monday, November 15, 2010

In praise of the cat


During the last forty years or so I seem to have read numerous articles and diatribes concerning the evil and murderous actions of the humble felis catus.  Since I was a very small boy my mother always had the cat around the house so I accepted it as part of my family whilst I was growing up.  I remember that “Sammy 1” was a splendid mouser and I can recall stepping on the remains of a dismembered mouse as I went to the lavatory early in the morning, as a pre-school child, but also thinking that the pantry was safe from furry predators.  My mother always had a cat within the house even though her husband did not approve of them until they obtained a royal Siamese specimen.  He was named “Sacha” and when three years old was given a year to live by the vet as he had a lung complaint similar to that of a heavy smoker of fifty years.  Needless to say he lived for a further nineteen years and whatever his circumstances he was always given the deference due to such a regal personage by other cats and dogs and humans.
 Those days are long gone and my memories are now from the cats with whom I have lived over the last forty years.  My first cat was ‘Horus’ an ex-farm cat that my wife and I collected from the local dairy farm.  He was covered in fleas; we shook him over a newspaper to collect most of them, and subsequently covered him with powder which was not very efficient.  We later obtained a cure from the local vet and he seldom suffered from such parasites again.  He was brought up with our daughter and was part of the family when out twins were born.  He even saved the life of one of the children telling us in no uncertain terms that one of them was in distress upstairs when we were watching television downstairs.  We certainly had no qualms leaving him in the same room as the babies.  He was a hunter, which is not so common amongst males, but he limited his game to mice and voles and decimating the local goldfish ponds.  I remember him once entering the kitchen cat flap with a goldfish almost as large as himself.  We completely disowned him when the locals sought a black and white cat that had been fishing in their front ponds.
To come up to date, rather than reminisce over the past too much, we recently moved to the south of France and we live in the foothills of the Pyrenees.  We have a large garden adjacent to the mountains and have a variety of wildlife around the area.  We moved here from the UK with two cats.  One was my mother’s, a large black and white English shorthair; and the other was a pure white French shorthair that my wife had brought with her from France when she moved in with me ten years earlier.  When in France he had been a ‘house cat’ but the transition to living in England in a suburban garden had not been too traumatic although he became territorial and ensured that other cats gave him due deference!
Moving to France was a long journey by car, seventeen and a half hours in total.  I think the cats fared better then we did.  On arrival we kept them inside for twenty four hours but they wanted to explore and settle down in their new environment.  They did. 
Within a short time our cats decided to organise a ‘pecking order’ with them at the top.  Next door’s very young male cat was put in his place by our French cat and he and our female took over the territory with passing rites for the local inhabitants.  Within a very short time a routine was established and the cats organised their days wandering over their countryside and checking up on the local wildlife. I’ve noticed over the years that hunting cats, when they are moved from one house to another, tend to catch something as soon as possible just to show how necessary they are to the family still.
The lizards and geckos were sport in the chasing stakes but had little nourishment valve and in fact tasted horrible, and their tails kept being left behind.  The moles kept under the earth except when making molehills and were not of any interest as game.  Our ‘black and white’ soon discovered a vole’s nest but she lost interest very quickly as they were not much of a challenge.  There were no mice in the house or gardens, or if they were they very soon disappeared and our only pests were the occasional flies.  When we moved in we were lucky with the weather and we had a long hot summer during which we planted the beginnings of an orchard and cleared the stream at the bottom of the garden.  The grass grew rapidly and I spent a lot of my time ‘strimming’ and ‘mowing’ the land.  The bird life was so cosmopolitan that we had to buy a guide book to identify them all.  We also noticed the predators, buzzards and a majestic pair of golden eagles that soared over the area looking for likely food.  We also had numerous bats and in fact one small pipistrelle made his nest under our eves until he found the rest of his family.
The winter that year was very hard.  Snow fell up to two meters deep just on the garden.  We are at 500meters so the cold was intense and the snow hard and unforgiving.  The bird table was a mass of migration from around the area.  It is only a small table but at many times there were up to twelve individuals hoovering up the sunflower seeds, fat balls and assorted nuts.  We saw about twenty different species of birds making use of the food source.  The cats during that time ventured out only for necessary ablutions and ignored everything else.
Spring brought back the Martins, Swallows and Swifts perching on the telephone wires and building their nests under the eves.  It was about this time that we inherited a small kitten, looking more like a guinea pig in colouring which infiltrated itself into our household.  Our daughter was living in as she was expecting her first child so the kitten was an experience for her in motherhood.  The kitten was mothered and loved to distraction.  At eight weeks she was taken to our local vet who pronounced her fit and well and she stuck her with needles to protect her from various ailments.  She survived it very well, not knowing that it would all reoccur in four weeks time!  At last she was free to go outside and discover the big wide world.  Our two ancient moggies had tolerated her presence thinking that she was just a passing fancy but with her independence and cat flap training they realised her was here to stay.  To say she was fearless would be an understatement.  Nothing was too difficult for her.  She would climb, scramble and claw her way around and think nothing of falling down from a great height.  Thank god kittens have elastic bones and foam skulls!  It was at about this stage that our two older cats decided that they would take part in her education and life skills.  Our ‘black and white’ took a leaf out of “Giles’s” cartoon book and became ‘Grandma’ with her umbrella and scowl and short temper.  Our French shorthair however became the incumbent ‘au pair’ and unpaid babysitter.  The kitten ran him ragged but he was so very good natured that it was only when she became really obnoxious that he whopped her with his paws to put her in her place.  He introduced her to the lizards, slugs, frogs and other arthropods but she was more interested in the ants, spiders and other fast moving creatures with which to play.  Birds were a fascinating diversion.  So fast and colourful and just out of reach.  She climbed the bird table and was disappointed when all that she found was the sunflower seeds.  Where had the birds gone?
By this time the French shorthair had decided to rest and sleep regularly under the bird table as it was halfway up the garden path and gave him a vantage point over his territory.  Having been a ‘flat cat’ for the first part of his life he really had no interest in flying balls of feathers so left them alone but gave them an occasional ‘chatter’ to show he could be interested if pushed.  The kitten soon realised that these flying balls of feathers were game but she was so frustrated with her lack of skill and the knocks she suffered when her hunting efforts caused her to jump into fence or post.  In due time the kitten settled down and became part of the landscape and was immured into
the ‘family Pyrenees’.
In late summer I sat out on the patio watching life pass by and refreshing myself with the odd pastis and I noticed that the French white was sitting under the bird table and that the birds totally ignored him with their comings and goings.  I noticed that the Great Tits and the Blue Tits were showing their offspring the food source.  Their young were significantly smaller but fearless and our kitten ignored them as the French white was slumbering underneath the bird table and oblivious of the avian antics above.
To be continued…………………..