Pester Power

For Christmas, we bought our cats a new scratching post. Not any old scratching post, oh no! This is the Rolls Royce of scratching posts. Three storeys high, covered in fur fabric with balls attached to elastic and tiny toy mice hiding in holes, it has proved to be a hugh source of entertainment for Phoebs and Tybs. Phoebe has taken possession of the lowest tier. She has arranged one of Andy's old jumpers, nest-like, between the three uprights that support the whole structure and that is where she spends a vast majority of her day sleeping. Tybalt perches on the second tier, casually dangling a paw over the edge so he can poke at Phoebe if he is feeling in a particularly minxy mood. The second tier gives him easy access to the balls-on-elastic-on- a-tree type appendage and sometimes he sits there twanging the balls a la Swingball.

The third tier is in the shape of a giant cat paw and is used occasionally by either cat. It is on a level with the kitchen worktops so provides Phoebe with easy access to the upper levels of the kitchen and saves her having to struggle onto a chair and then wobble precariously for half an hour on the back of said chair whilst she decides if she can make the eight inch leap forward or whether she will plunge to certain death below. Generally, this state of affairs reaches the point where neither Andy or I can bear it any longer and we pick her up and put her back on the floor which brings about much angry tail lashing because she has to start the whole process again. In this mood, she reminds of a Peanuts cartoon I once saw of Charlie Brown picking up a stone and throwing it into the sea. Linus looks at him and says 'It took 10,000 years for that pebble to make it up the beach.'

To go with the scratch post we also got them a giant kipper-sized kipper that is filled with cat-nip. Tybalt goes mental for catnip. He indulges in much kipper wrestling with the cat-nip filled kipper and it's starting to look a bit raddled. It's also absorbed a lot of cat spit as kipper wrestling makes Tybalt produce excessive amounts of saliva. Phoebe prefers a smaller catnip toy in the shape of a pepper. She will carry this around as if it is a kitten, whilst making odd miaowing sounds at the same time which suggests to me she may have some latent ventriloquist talent. She's doing it right now. She looks a right numpty.

So last night, Andy arrived home from work with a big bunch of flowers for me because he said I'd been looking sad for a few days (what a lovely, lovely man I have! And no, he's mine, all mine and you can't have him, so get back!) and a pot of catnip bubbles for the cats. He blows a few bubbles as I am dishing up dinner. Tybalt watches bubbles. Tybalt pats a couple of bubbles. Tybalt leaps into air at bubbles. Tybalt goes cat-nip bubble crazy. Tybalt pesters us incessantly for the rest of the evening. 'Blow me MORE cat-nip bubbles. NOW!' he says. 'MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!' It's like having a toddler in the house again.

And did you know that when cat-nip bubbles land on the floor they make a really loud 'POP!' ?? 'POP DIDDLY POP POP POP!' they go like soapy rice krispies attached to megaphones. I kid you not. They're not the kind of bubbles you'd want to blow if, for example, you were a burglar. Half -way through helping yourself to someone else's property you might see this pot of bubbles and think, 'I'll just blow a couple of bubbles before I make off with my swag.' Well, think again. Because if you did, everyone in the house would be awake in a nano-second, disturbed by the noise the cat-nip bubbles make as they land. No, my moronic low-life, burglar friend. Cat-nip bubbles would be your downfall.

I have to go now. Tybalt is sitting in front of me, his nose five inches from my face. He is staring really hard. He's got that catnip crazy look in his eyes.




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