Second Motherhood

The 'cor-blimey-look-at-that-whopper' egg laid by Mrs Pumphrey on Wednesday has been proudly on display in the kitchen to be thrust upon various visitors for 'Oooohing' and 'Aaaahing' over, and other such general voicings of amazement and admiration. And then, last night, it suddenly disappeared.

'Who's eaten the giant Pumphrey egg?' I demanded.
Everyone in the house at the time (Andy, my mum, Chris and Leane) all denied any illicit egg consumption. Tybalt said he wouldn't touch an egg if it was the last food on earth, Pandora said, what egg? where? can I have some cheese? aren't I cute? and Phoebe, as usual, was asleep and didn't say anything.

Up early this morning, after a fretful night worrying about egg-knapping, and wondering how long this stifling weather was going to continue I appeared in the kitchen to find Phoebe wide awake and with her paw over her lips.

'Sssssshhhhh!' she whispered. 'The baby's asleep.'
'Baby?' I said. 'What baby?' (I thought, she can't be referring to Pandora because as far as Phoebe is concerned, Pandora is the delinquent teenage wild-child spawn of the Devil Cat of Hell.)
'My baby,' said Phoebe, proudly.

Now, I know Phoebe is always quite keen to get outside, being the only one of our cats who has previously experienced the Great Outdoors, but her modus operandi is usually to find the first piece of long grass which she will gobble down quickly and then return to the house to vomit it up on the kitchen floor. I wasn't aware she'd had any untoward assignations and besides, when she arrived at Andy's surgery many years ago as a scraggly stray with two new-born kittens, she was cleaned up and spayed immediately because there are already enough cats in the world without encouraging multiple-litters.

'Phoebe, ' I said, kindly and gentle, 'you can't have any more babies.'
'I hatched the Giant Pumphrey egg,' said Phoebe, proudly. 'And look what came out!'

'Good Lord!' I said.
'Isn't she lovely?' said Phoebe proudly. 'I think she looks like me.'
'In the manner she is black and furry, yes,' I said. 'But in the manner of the bill and the webbed feet, then no, this is a duckling and not a kitten.'
'Well, you think what you like,' said Phoebe, dipping her elbow into the water she was running for her baby's bath. 'But Rubba is my baby. I hatched her and I am going to look after her. And now if you'll excuse us, it is baby bath-time.'

And she hustled me from the bathroom and slammed the door.

'Can cats develop mental illness?' I asked Andy.
'All the time,' said Andy. 'Especially those that reside at Much Malarkey Manor.'

Alistair's darling budgie

What with all the writing, running, swimming, allotmenteering and home gardening that's been going on at Much Malarkey Manor this week, some news of apparent national importance has passed me by and it's all to do with Alistair's darling budgie.

As you know, I like animals and birds. I had a Gloucester canary once called Brian who had the most amazing hair-do and could flick birdseed way across the room straight into the Yamaha organ, much to my mother's annoyance. Never had a budgie though, so I thought I'd pick up on this missed news and see if it was remotely interesting.

'What's all this to do with Alistair's darling budgie?' I say to Phoebe who is very keen on keeping up with current affairs.
'Don't talk to me about him,' she says, rolling her eyes towards heaven. 'He's in the back bedroom. He's supposed to be helping Tybalt and I print more money for the Government's quantitative cheating, I mean, easing programme, but he's being about as much use as a bicycle to a fish.'

You'll remember, faithful and regular readers amongst you, that Phoebs and Tybs have been using the back bedroom to print more money for the Government as part of their way of helping the country out of its current recession.

'Oh yes,' I say, because I'd forgotten this particular plot line and only remembered it when I was scraping the bottom of the teapot of my mind for what to blog about this morning. 'How much have you made so far?'

'£175,' says Phoebe.
'Oh good,' I say, 'We'll be out of the recession in no time at that rate.'
'Sarky,' says Phoebe.
'So how come Alistair's darling budgie is in our back bedroom,' I ask.
'Got sent here, didn't he. Undercover. To avoid the media glare. I only agreed to take him in because I ate his great-great-great-aunt Flossie about 7 years ago when I was still a wild Scouse cat, and not the refined Southern kitty like what I am now.'
'And has Alistair's darling budgie got a name?' I ask, hoping it was a relatively short one, thus avoiding irritating my repetitive strain injury with excessive typing.
'Yes,' says Phoebe. 'He is called Reilly.'
'Reilly Darling?' I say, thinking that sounded a bit posh for a budgie.
'Don't be silly,' says Phoebe, 'Reilly Darling would be ridiculous. His second now is Oreful.'
'It can't be that bad,' I say, desperately trying to inject a bit of humour into the conversation.
'I'd stop now before you get out of your depth,' Phoebe warns.

It transpires that Reilly arrived at midnight on Wednesday via ParcelForce straight from London in a red briefcase. The paparazzi were in hot pursuit and camped out on the doorstep all night until Tybalt threw a bottle of Toilet Duck at them from the bathroom window. Actually, I vaguely remember waking to a frenzy of flashing lights outside but thought it was the firebrigade and number 11 had set fire to their chip pan again.

'What's Reilly done?' I ask, thinking it must be something pretty awful for him to be sent to live in a back bedroom in back-of-beyond Kent to assist in the printing of money.

'He made a series of wild and unsubstantiated predictions regarding the country's economy and instead of keeping them to himself, broadcast them to the nation in one of the most lacklustre and boring speeches every known to mankind,' says Phoebe. 'It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't got his pages muddled up and dropped his crystal ball. That's what happens when you eat prunes for breakfast,' she finishes. A stark warning to us all, I think.
'What kind of predictions?' I ask.
'Do you really want to know?' asks Phoebe. 'It's not pretty you know.'
'Yes,' I say, completely ready for a good laugh.

Phoebe takes a deep breath. 'Venus is rising and forming a trine with Neptune which means all tuba players in the London Philharmonic will have to hold their breath for an average 47% longer during Holst's Planet Suite. There will be erratic variables in supermarket staples- eggs are up...'
'That'll make the chickens squawk,' I say.
'...but balloons are down. More money will be printed and thrown at the Bank of England until everyone inside gives up and comes out waving little white flags. If you're a granny, you'll get paid to look after your grandchildren, but why would you want to do that, you've only just got rid of your own kids, for heaven's sake. You can buy an electric car for £37.50+ vat at 900% but you'll only be able to travel in radii of 15 metres until someone invents a longer cable.'
'Like Vince?' I ask, having already decided that if Vince Cable was in charge of Land GB, I would become a woolly minded lib-dem and vote for him, which goes completely against my strident right-wing tendencies, but desperate times call for wild and wacky sit-on-the-fence-and-wobbly measures.
'No,' says Phoebe. 'I don't think you're taking this seriously are you?'
'When will these measures take place?' I ask.
'2023,' says Phoebe.

I have to admit that no, I'm not taking this news seriously. My faith in politics disappeared back in the Nineties, when dear old Maggie got the boot to be replaced by Major Grey 'n' Dreary. What were they thinking? Well, they weren't, and that was the problem. And by the time 'Sell you a Second Hand Car Blair' arrived, well, I'd decided they were all as bad as each other.

Poor Alistair's darling budgie. It's Reilly Oreful.

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