March 18: Cats

March 18: Cats
I seem to be attracting cats into my life. When I first moved in back in August, I had a lodger - even though the house was a building site (she paid cheap rent). She came with two until-then house cats as she had previously lived in a top-floor flat.
I said to her: 'Are they house trained?'
She said: 'Yes.'
I said: 'Please can you throw them out in the day. I don't want a litter tray in the house as I don't have a utility room.'
She said: 'No problem.'
But there was one tinsy problem; no one told the cats. They didn't want to go. They took one look at the cold billowing Bristol winds and thought: 'Sod that. Don't you know I'm a house cat. Don't you know I like doing my do-do in a nice clean warm litter tray. Won't catch me crouching in a pile of sodden leaves. I might catch a chill.'
After two weeks - still a litter tray lurking downstairs.
Fine for her - she was out of the house all day. It was Moi who had to put up looking at a steaming crusty cat turd, and wait for the wafts to reach me.
I dared to broach the subject.
She put the cat litter tray in her bedroom.
I don't know how she put up with this. It stank - especially as I made sure her door was closed to ensnare the smell.
One day I peeped in and her clothes had fallen off her wardrobe into the tray. All I can say, is she must like cat droppings more than I do.
Then - another night (sorry, you can tell I still haven't quite got this out of my system) she invited her hunk of her boyfriend around to sleep.
Ah - well then, she didn't want the steaming cat litter tray in her bedroom then, did she.
He might think her a tad odd, no? To fall asleep to the smell of bottom-ended digested Whiskers. Not really a Lavender-scented candle, is it?
So she put the litter tray out on the landing. Right by the ladder down which I climbed from my sleeping-hideaway in the loft.
I lay in bed. Thought: 'Wonderful. I am three-months pregnant. I feel awful. I am very dumped and single and dreadfully miserable.
'I really do not want to hear my flat-mate having sex with her hunky man. I can't even shut my door as I sleep in a loft. I want to cry.'
4am, I awoke to an all-too-familiar scratching noise.
One of the cats was having a crap right by my ladder, the smell wafting straight up into my loft hatch to accompany my dreams.
Well, I've never got down the ladder to so quick to bollock the little blighter and chuck it's filthy waste downstairs (very loudly).
During this time, with the house in complete upheaval from the builders, my spare room became an Armageddon.
It was full of boxes and belongings; it was my kitchen (the kettle, microwave and toaster were there); my tool-shed, my wardrobe.
One Sunday, I dared to clear it out.
After ten minutes: 'Hmm, that smells a bit funny. What is that slightly-acidic aroma?'
There was cat piss everywhere. On bags full of clothes, on books, on towels, on my brother-in-law's pirate outfit which I had borrowed to go to a fancy-dress party.
And in one corner - a nice, fossilised cat turd.
To be fair, if I was a cat I too might have thought: 'This room is in such a mess, I'm going to use it as a toilet.'
But I didn't think that at the time. I thought: 'I am spending my Sunday cleaning-up cat piss and I am really not very happy about it.'
The best bit:
When I told said-lodger, she said: 'Oh, that will have been Maggie, the black cat.'
I said: 'How do you know which cat it was?'
She said: 'Oh, she used to do it all over my house every time she got scared.'

I now seem to have a different cat in my life. It is the neighbour's. A few weeks ago, my middle sister and dad did a Good Samaritan day's work chopping down trees and overgrown bushes in my back yard. I think we beheaded its favourite perch.
It now comes into my yard and peers at me through my French windows.
I work from home, sat at my kitchen table all alone in my quiet little house. Sometimes I look up and it is just sat there, looking at me inquisitively, watching me.
I feel like a specimen at the Zoo.
I think, 'Should I let it in. It looks like a nice pussy cat. It looks like it might want to come in.'
Then I remember.