A Welcome Home Present... Cat-Style

I was just hanging the washing up yesterday morning, having just returned from holiday, when I heard the bloodcurdling screams of a small anguished animal coming from the kitchen.

I ran straight to the source of the terrible sound, and found one of my cats, Sheba, with a tiny bird in her mouth. She looked proud as punch; the bird struggled frantically, flailing its free wing as hard as it could.

"Sheba! Let go!" I was horrified: Sheba's never brought back 'presents' before like our other cats have in the past. She must have been really happy to have us back.

Miraculous, Sheba plopped the poor creature at my feet. The bird froze and fell silent, probably certain of its end between the ferocious cat and the looming human monster. It's little chest rose and fell rapidly in terror.

Quickly but gently, I scooped the bird up: it was more than small enough to loosely fit in one hand. Sheba chirruped and purred, winding herself around my ankles in a 'Didn't I do really well?' sort of way. I scratched her behind the ears with my free hand, stretching wide so the bird in my other hand was as far away from her as possible, and went into the garden.

I felt sick. What if the bird was so injured that I had no choice but to snap its neck? Could I do it? I'd have to.

I peered into my loosely-closed fist. It ('she', I decided after a while), blinked warily up at me. I opened my hand a little more so I could take a better look: there was no blood, nothing sticking out at odd angles, and her wings looked fine (although they were folded, so they could still have been broken). I sighed in relief- she was okay, or at least would just need a bit of time to recover.

At this point it occurred to me how crazy it was that I was holding this little bird. Feeling a little guilty (because I'd be annoyed if I'd just been through the same thing), I took a picture of her in my hand with my phone.

I opened my hand up to see what she'd do, bringing my other hand up to make a sort of platform. To my surprise she simply flexed her wings and hopped straight onto the fourth finger of my right hand, her tiny talons wrapping themselves around the digit. I raised my hand up into the sky, but she just gripped a little tighter.

"Go on," I said in what I hoped was a soothing voice, "Here's your chance." I bobbed my hand upwards, but she gripped tighter again, not ready to go just yet.

"You should really go now before my cat comes back outside," I said. She cocked her head in my direction and blinked again.

With my free hand, I reached out to smooth her mussed-up feathers with a finger, thinking maybe she'd finally fly away if I tried to touch her. Instead, this seemed to calm her down a little, and she shifted to make herself more comfortable. Thinking she might be ready, I walked over to the garage and raised her up, so she might hop on the roof. Instead, I felt the pressure of her little feet increase around my finger. I sighed, and brought her up to my face. What was I going to do with this bird?

I paced around the garden, the bird (who I'd now named 'Liwu'- Mandarin for 'Gift') on one hand and my phone in the other. It was tricky manoeuvring with one hand, but I managed to take another picture of her send out a plea for advice on Facebook.

A few people mentioned broken wings again, which made me worry. It didn't seem as if Liwu's wings were broken, and she didn't seem to be in discomfort when she'd stretched her wings, but there was always a chance. Would I have to take care of her? With two cats in the house, I hoped not.

After about half an hour of pacing around with this bird in my hand (at one point shooing poor Sheba away, who'd come outside to see what I'd made of her present), I sat down on the garden chair. I brought Liwu up to my face again. She was breathing normally now, and had stopped peering around wildly. I took more photos of her with my phone (she seemed curious about it, shifting so she could get a better look). I found out Liwu was in fact a young goldfinch, according to the RSPB online bird identifier. All the while I kept chatting to her, even though knew she couldn't understand me. Every so often I reached out to scratch her on the head or stroke her feathers, which she seemed to like.

About a good hour after I first picked her up, I stood up. I felt Liwu shift from one foot to the other and twitch her wings a bit.

"Alright. Are you ready, now?" I asked her. I raised my hand high into the air, and waited. It was like a spell had been broken: Liwu straightened herself up to peer at the sky. After just a moment or two, she stretched her wings wide. She flapped, took a great leap and was gone.

As if on cue, Sheba waltzed back into the garden. I picked her up (she gave a squawk of disgruntlement) and carried her back inside.

Be safe out there, little Liwu!

It's Never Like it Is in the Commercials

I walked the streets of East London, only vaguely aware that I was in a daze. My feet seemed to know what they were doing, and since the rest of me was tired out from from being on a ladder for the last four and a half hours, my slightly addled brain reckoned that trusting my feet was logical.

As I walked along, the chilly wind began to clear my fogged brain. Surely Old Street Station wasn't this far from Bethnal Green when I walked earlier? I blinked and looked around me.

I had somehow wandered all the way to London Bridge.

Today, I painted a ceiling in Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium. So far my contributions to the widely anticipated cat cafe have largely been in the digital world, helping to SEO and write things up for the website. This weekend was the first I was free at the same time as the Emporium needing some DIY work done, so I volunteered to help do some painting.

After a few minutes of making a fuss of the cats, I found myself in a boiler suit with a paint roller in my hand and a tall step ladder under my feet, ready to paint the room that would become the cat's quiet room. I throught of those adverts with smug middle class people painting their own homes. How hard could it be?

A few minutes in and I'd already given up on keeping my hands clean of paint, both now as white as the ceiling was to become, and there was already paint on my face and in my hair.

I say a few minutes in- I'm not entirely sure how long it took for me to give up on keeping myself clean. I'd left my watch upstairs with my belongings to protect them from getting painted. In fact, the combination of being watchless while concentrating on my work messed my internal clock up so much that, when I finally got round to asking Lauren what the time was on one of her trips through the room, the hour I thought had passed was actually three.

'Just a little bit more, and then I'm done,' I thought. I finished the ceiling, and did a bit of work on the walls for a few minutes. My legs had gotten a little wobbly, but I put this down to the weird position you have to put yourself in when painting on a ladder.

When I was done, another helper popped through and I asked him what the time was. My 'few minutes' was actually an hour and a half! At least I'd finished the ceiling, and done some of the walls too. I was feeling a bit light-headed though... maybe I should call it a day. I shrugged off my boiler suit, scrubbed up and went to tell Lauren that I was heading home. Lauren looked at me and her brows furrowed.

"Tash, are you feeling okay? You look a bit... out of it."

"Well, I do feel a bit weird," I said. Suddenly I realised that I had been so focused on my work, so unaware of the time, I'd not left the room once in the four and a half hours I was painting. I hadn't even opened the door.

"Er.. I think you might be wired on paint fumes," Lauren said, looking both concerned and amused. I may have smiled a goofy smile.

After assuring Lauren I was fine and wasn't going to pass out, I headed out with the intention of getting to Old Street station- just a ten minute walk away from the cafe.

...Of course, now we know I ended up walking from East London to the south side of the Thames without even noticing.

In Which Woosy Pays Me a Visit

Woosy was my first cat, and my first proper pet- not counting the three goldfish Goldie, Alan and Popeye (RIP) that one by one managed to jump out of the fishbowl. I managed to dig out a few old-school film photos of her- here she's sitting on my first piano.

We adopted her as an almost fully-grown kitten when we found her in the garden- I was five years old at the time. Or rather, she adopted us- we fed the scrawny little thing and she kept coming back, seemingly deciding that we were 'the chosen ones', until eventually she because part of the family. She was with us for sixteen happy years, until she very suddenly fell very ill. I was at university when my mum and dad phoned me to tell me that Woosy had to be put to sleep because of a large inoperable growth in her stomach. They had buried her in the garden. I cried all day.

Dad took it the hardest, I think- Woosy adored him, and he adored her. Thankfully our other cat Fudge (adopted as a kitten soon after we got used to Woosy) was still around for cuddles, although she moped quite a lot for a while after- according to Mum and Dad, she would walk around the house sniffing behind sofas, in corners and cubbyholes, as if searching for her lost friend.

A few years later we adopted Sheba, a cat who lived at the warehouse Dad worked at and was either destined for life as a working cat on a farm, or to be put down, after Health and Safety officials found out about her- and so the household returned to having two cats roaming around and keeping each other company. I still say hi to Woosy when I'm watering the plants in the garden, sometimes.

Some time last week, when Dad went to work and Mum had gone to bed, I was up late doing some work. I got up, taking care not to disturb Sheba (who was asleep in the chair next to me), and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I felt Fudge brush up playfully against my leg.

"Hello, Fudgey," I said automatically.

I heard Fudge chirp back in greeting, but the sound didn't come from by my feet. I looked down to see nothing but bare floor, and looked up to the source of the friendly sound: Fudge was sitting on the warm radiator, on the other side of the kitchen. Very suddenly, my first and very much-loved cat popped into my head.

"...Woosy?" I asked tentatively. I looked around and looked back at Fudge, who had started to purr quietly. Fudge was gazing at the space next to my leg.

"Hi, Wooss-Puss," I whispered, using her old nickname,  and got on with making my tea.

I'm not sure that I believe in ghosts- I don't rule the possibility out completely, but I maintain a healthy amount of skepticism about the whole subject. I don't even know if that *was* the ghost of my former pet letting me know she's still around- the nerves in my leg might have just played a trick on me, and Fudge's reaction may have just be cooincidence- and the strong feeling of Woosy's presence rather than fear merely a very human grasp at hope. Whatever it was, it's nice to think that old Wooss-Puss is still kicking around in her own personal dimension, making sure no other ghost kitties invade the territory that she once called home.

RIP little friend, we all still miss you.

Will Take Kittens for Bribes

Recently, an old school friend of Dad's passed away from a combination of lung and bone cancer. From what I hear he was a great guy, and one of the last things he did before he died was to reunite his and my dad's old group of school friends. It's unknown whether or not he knew he was dying when he got everyone together- I suspect he did, but others say he wasn't officially diagnosed until only two weeks before his passing. In any case, when his condition rapidly deteriorated, he was in such a bad way that all his family could do was wish him a swift passing to end his suffering.

My dad has smoked since he was a teenager, and I've always been on at him to quit, terrified that this may one day be his fate, too. Alas, he's always been of the 'it won't happen to me' mindset. He refuses to believe that you don't have to be a chain smoker to be killed by cigarettes, choosing to believe that his couple a day is healthy enough. However, I can tell his friend's untimely passing has struck a note with him.

So I decided to strike while the iron was hot.

I asked Dad if he was ready to give up smoking now. He said no- whilst lighting one up. We stepped into the garden while he smoked (Dad hadn't smoked in the house since I was born). He added that he could right away if he wanted to- he just didn't want to. In fact, for the whole two weeks he and Mum were on holiday in Malaysia recently, he didn't take any tobacco with him and didn't smoke once! So what was the problem, I asked him? Dad half-joked that I was trying to take one of his few pleasures in life away. What would it take for me to get him to stop smoking? I asked him. He looked thoughtful, took a drag of his cigarette, puffed out and grinned.

"If you can convince your mother to get two new kittens, then I'll give up smoking."

I laughed. It's no secret that we're a family of cat people, neither that Dad has been thinking about adding to our feline family. But two kittens? Impossible. We already have to adult cats, and Dad knew as well as I did that Mum would hit the roof if I suggested we added two energetic balls of fur to the collection.

But then I got thinking. Dad didn't smoke in Malaysia at all- was it because he was enjoying himself out there too much to care? Back at home, with the stress of work and bills and daily life, of course it'd be harder to kick the habit. Dad has no regular hobbies, so maybe a distraction is the answer to this problem. And maybe a distraction in the form of an energetic ball of fur is just what he needs.

"One kitten."

"What?"

"One kitten." I looked at him seriously. "I'll convince Mum- but only and ONLY if you solemnly swear that, if I succeed, you'll give up for good."

Dad looked at me warily, cigarette hovering.

"I mean it: Dad's honour. One kitten, no smoking."

Dad took a thoughtful drag of his cigarette and exhaled very slowly. "... Alright."

We shook on it, me giving my poor Dad the meanest stare I could muster.

"Give me a month," I said, ominously.

I didn't feel as brave as I sounded, though- I knew it would be a real job convincing Mum. While I'd like another cat as much as Dad- I also have my Mum's practical brain in me. What about the extra money on vet bills and food? Dad's retiring soon, can we really afford another cat? Would it be fair on the other cats to cause them the stress of socialising them with a new cat? How would we juggle taking time off to litter train the kitten, introduce it to the garden, make sure it didn't escape through the cat flap before it had orientated itself in our home?

But if it meant Dad giving up cigarettes for good...

This was a week ago. Last night I caught mum in a good mood. I tentatively broached the subject with her, mentioning that there was a chance that we could get Dad to stop smoking... but only if we supplied him with a kitten.

To my surprise, Mum responded only by scrunching up her nose a little. This might seem bad to you, but to me- who has a couple of decades of reading my mum's body language- this was positive. It wasn't an outright and definite no.

Sorry Dad, your smoking days may be numbered after all.

Serious Business: A Quarter of a Century Old

((I was about to apologise for the more serious tone of this entry- but who am I kidding, I regret nothing!))

This weekend (Saturday to be exact), I turned 25 years old.

On Friday I travelled to Birmingham, the place of my studies, to stay the weekend at my very good friend's house. Lucia's birthday is always a day after mine, and since we were both turning 25 on the Saturday and Sunday one after another, we decided to celebrate this milestone by throwing a Halloween-themed murder mystery dinner party. We spent Friday preparing the base for the cake (check out this entry on my other blog for pics), decorating the dining area in preparation for a spooky game and three-course dinner, and chilling in general.

Lucia and I spent a bit of time joking about turning 25 and how so many people had been teasing us about becoming 'a quarter of a century old', and how overly dramatic it sounded. Lucia, Peter (Lucia's husband and also another uni friend of mine) and I were drinking tea, eating chocolate and generally chilling out late into the evening, when I glanced at the clock.

It was 23:50.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, I got a tremendous sense of Do Not Want.

Nearly twenty-five years of memories flickered through my mind like someone fast-forwarding a tape, and stopped as suddenly as it came on. I inwardly assessed myself as part of my social network rather than just as an individual, which is so much easier because you're only figuring yourself in the equation. Almost all of my friends and certainly my closest ones are married or attached and discussing marriage or Attached (with a capital A to portray the fact that although marriage isn't on the cards, they'll spend their lives together). Some are mentioning the prospect of children in the now increasingly near future. Hell, it even only took my dear old ex at very most three weeks after jumping our three-year relation-ship ((see what I did there?)) to find the love of his life (evident by the perhaps slightly shameless profile pictures on a certain popular social media site he published before I blocked his arse), which was a fair while ago now (long enough, thankfully, to only feel a twinge of annoyance about the whole thing- although it annoys me further that I still feel a little annoyed, which is inherently annoying).

Where was I now, though? In a stable (I hope) and decent job, but still living with my parents and in my soon-to-be (now current) mid-twenties, steadily but far too painfully slowly saving up for my own place, contentedly unattached- but watching those closest to me beginning to show signs of moving in the realm of having Their Own Life, and even Starting Families.

I suddenly realised what's been eating away at me for a while now: a time is coming when I'm going to be facing a lot of stuff on my own. I'm an only child and my parents, although in largely good health, aren't getting any younger, and whilst my friends will always be there for me and vice versa they will be getting on with their own lives, and dynamics will shift very drastically with children in the mix (which, don't get me wrong, I don't consider a bad thing at all- in fact, I'm quite looking forward to being Auntie Tash and I hope I turn out to be a really fun aunt). But what the fun things we have been doing in our youth and what were going to do on Saturday night- dressing up in ridiculous and cool costumes, painting out faces, drinking bright green appletinis and basically acting our shoe sizes- is soon going to become a thing of the past.

And because I'm contentedly unattached but at the root of things, when I think about it, slow to develop affection towards people even on a friendship-type level, there is every chance that I'll become fun and slightly wacky Auntie Tash who bakes a lot of cake and lives with a load of cats.

(('That's not true!' I hear my friends cry, 'You'll find someone very special to you one day.'))

I snapped out of it- this whole train of thought blinked past in about thirty seconds anyway- and mentioned my determination to do the best I could in life and get the most out of it, even if I never did find my partner in crime in life. Sure enough, my loyal friends told me not to worry, that I'd find Him eventually. I think my friends really do believe that, even if I'm genuinely quite a bit less convinced. We chatted and joked some more.

At the back of my mind I worried though, and I thought: 'Is that all that's important to me? Not being alone? Am I that cowardly?'

I glanced up at the clock again. 00:25. Saturday morning.

"I believe it's my birthday, now," I announced.

I felt the weird, slightly unfamiliar feeling of certainty flood through me.

'No.' I silently answered my own question as my friends and I decided if I should open my card and present now, or after sleeping. I'm not afraid of being alone- at least, not in the grand scheme of things. Yes, it's more than a little scary on a selfish level to see those closest to me levelling up in the game that is Life whilst I feel like I'm floundering far behind everyone else in the starting zone. Yes, the responsibility and duty of being an only child is quite scary, too. And yes, to be completely transparent, it is a tad lonely to not have that special someone who totally gets you to share your life with- I'm a human being, not a honey badger ((for some reason, the honey badger was the first solitary animal I could think of... don't ask, I don't know)). But rather than believing myself to be behind everyone, I began to realise in that instant that I'm not seeing everyone ahead of me- I'm just seeing everyone off to the side.

I'm on a different path- not lagging behind on a singular one. And I don't even want that many cats, anyway.

I suddenly felt a lot better.

The next day we ate chocolate for breakfast, had friends round and dressed up in ridiculous and cool costumes, we painted our faces, we drank appletinis and we ate a stupid amount of cake. I laughed so hard I nearly displaced my kidneys in my corseted Morticia outfit. There is Stuff that is going to be heading my way soon enough, a big chunk of that Stuff I can't even begin to try and predict- but for now, I'll just enjoy being young. After all, I'm still only in my mid-twenties.

~Fin~

Short Story: A Domesticated Disney Moment

This morning the sun was (briefly) shining, I had the house to myself and I was feeling pretty kickass after a morning run, so to make my unusually quiet day even more awesome I decided to do one of the things I like doing best: bake.

I had a pretty summer dress on, and was swanning about barefoot on the just-mopped kitchen tiles. I donned my apron, cracked out my mixing bowl and wooden spoon and got to work. At some point in the process, I started to sing. So here I was, mixing bowl in the crook of my arm, stirring away with my wooden spoon and singing in my dress and apron and bare feet, when I turned around.

My two cats, both of whom at best only seem to tolerate each other and are seldom seen in the same room together, were sitting side-by-side in the middle of the kitchen, close enough for their whiskers to touch, watching me.

My face split into a smile at the sight- how lovely to see the two so close together! I turned around to continue my work, very pleased with how my quiet Sunday was turning out, when I glanced out of the glass doors and into the garden.

The smile on my face froze in disbelief.

Outside in my previously-empty little garden were about a dozen birds of various varieties, on the lawn, fence and bushes.

It was sheer coincidence that a load of birds gathered in my garden for no apparent reason while I danced and flounced and baked, and it probably was the sound of me singing that summoned my cats (whether I was any good or not!), but I'd like to believe I have magical Disney Princess powers anyway.

~Fin~