louiscatorze.com

Je crie, donc je suis

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Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, supreme ruler of Le Château, sworn enemy of canine foe and scourge of Ocado delivery drivers.

  • Un escalier se balaie en commençant par le haut

    How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?

    During the pandemic, we had a stupid rule here in the UK stating that any death within 28 days of contracting COVID would be officially registered as a COVID death. Yes, even if you were hit by a bus. 

    Louis Catorze clearly knew this, because he dedicated an inordinate amount of time to sitting on the stairs in the hope that I’d fall over him. And, every now and again, he remembers his failed mission and tries again, even though, this time, he won’t be able to blame COVID.

    However, six years on, he doesn’t seem to have the tenacity to see it through, and he caves in long before I do. 

    This short photo story illustrates exactly that: 

    “Not moving.”
    “Not moving.”
    “Not moving.”
    “Not moving.”
    “Not moving.”
    “Oh, ok, FINE.”

    When I sent Cat Daddy the photos, this was his response: 

    Rude word blocked out for decency.

    Oh dear. So it seems that not even Catorze’s beloved papa is safe from this. 

    If anything happens to us that looks as if it were an accident, please tell the police that the 2.92kg black cat did it. 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le matin, c’est la jeunesse du jour

    What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

    I am very much a morning person. My energy takes a dip in the afternoon and, by the evening, it’s not really worth trying to engage with me. (People still try, though I wish they wouldn’t.)

    The start of my day is always spent with Louis Catorze; if he’s not badgering me fifty minutes before my alarm goes off, he soon appears when I go downstairs. However, now that we have entered the post-equinox era of brighter mornings – or at least they WERE bright, until the clocks went forward on Sunday – he is often outside. And, yesterday morning, my attention was drawn to the unmistakable, ear-splitting sound of a magpie’s throat-rattle. 

    Oh no. What with Catorze being an old man an’ all, I had half-forgotten his love of altercations with the local wildlife. Regretfully, Catorze had not forgotten. 

    I peered outside to see not one but two magpies, one perched on Family Next Door’s elderberry tree and the other on the telegraph poles behind our houses, cackling away. And Catorze was sat below them, not actually goading them (this time), but it seems that he didn’t need to do so. The mere fact that he was living, breathing and going about his daily business was enough to get them started. 

    So for the spring and summer, at least, the first hour of my day will be spent listening to a a cacophonous corvid chorus, praying that Catorze isn’t responsible, then going to investigate and having my hopes cruelly dashed. 

    I hope that your day starts more gently than mine, although the bar is pretty low so it’s likely that it does.

    Screaming in the grape hyacinth: no idea why this would bother the birds.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Viens dans les prés, le gai printemps 

    Merci à Dieu: it’s the Easter holidays. This is excellent because I don’t have to think about work for a whole two weeks, but also worrying because I’ll be spending more time with Louise Catorze, who has been absolutely unhinged lately.

    Springtime tomfoolery.

    On the last day of term I switched off my weekday alarm, although I needn’t have bothered: Catorze, despite leaving me alone most mornings for the last three months, happily provided a wake-up service, fifty minutes before my regular alarm would have gone off. 

    I caught him on the kitchen worktop again on the first day of the holidays. He also seems to have resumed his habit of going into the bathroom to get high on the bleach, because Cat Daddy found muddy paw prints on the floor. After muddying them, the little weasel walked across my new white trousers, leaving The Mark of the Beast as he did so: 

    Yuck.

    Meanwhile, on the south coast, Otis seems to have turned his garden into the local feline community centre. Idris, The Cat With The Human Face, is a frequent patron, although he only lives next door and was always around anyway. The bigger surprise is this fluffy newcomer. Who is s/he? And does s/he come in peace?

    Idris, New Kid and Otis decide who will take the minutes of the meeting.
    This looks quite civilised?

    I hope that whatever’s powering them will calm the heck down. That said, there’s a full moon in a couple of days’ time, so I suspect it will only get worse. 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Où est ma voix?

    What makes you laugh?

    Every so often Louis Catorze loses his voice, most likely from too much screaming. When he tries to make a sound, he barely manages to emit a breathy wheeze. And nothing is more hilarious than this.

    He doesn’t need medical attention, nor does this concern us in the slightest. Obviously if his voice disappeared permanently we would take him to the vet, but have seen this happen plenty of times and it always comes back, usually within minutes. 

    Here is Cat Daddy, trying to engage Catorze in conversation just so that we can laugh at the breathy wheezing. It took some superhuman effort on my part to suppress my giggles enough to hold the camera still: 

    Yes, that meowing at the very start is Cat Daddy.

    It seems that Catorze only has two settings: Screaming and Off. I much prefer one, whereas Cat Daddy, when I asked him, answered without hesitation in favour of the other. 

    I imagine you can guess which one of us likes which? 

    Here’s a screaming sample, so that you can compare properly.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Un nouveau mode de vie (Partie 14) 

    We have big news here at Le Château: Louis Catorze is now about 0.1% less of an arsehole when we administer his thyroid medication. 

    We still have to employ the stealth attack method; if he knows it’s coming, it won’t work. Cat Daddy usually grabs him for one of their man-to-man chats, holding him on his lap and politely enquiring about the kind of day he’s had. Catorze listens so intently that he doesn’t hear me sneaking up on him brandishing a finger-condom dosed with Methimazole. Sometimes I can even do the job in one swipe without him even knowing it’s happened. 

    It’s still a pain in the arse to do, but it’s far better than having to pin down a writhing, screaming hell-beast. And, since we have to do this twice a day for the rest of his life, we will happily take any scant crumbs of improvement. 

    In his freezer bag, scowling at anyone who tries to get him out.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Un certain Bleu pénètre votre âme 

    Gorgeous boy.

    I am very sad to have to tell you that Blue the Smoke Bengal is no longer with us. 

    Blue was a stunningly beautiful cat, whose teddy bear appearance belied his murderous heart. No member of the local wildlife was safe from his slasher claws; he counted pigeons, blackbirds, sparrows, blue tits and squirrels among his victims. However, because Blue had such an expansive, sprawling stomping ground, there were probably others, too. Just like the most prolific human serial killers, the actual body count was likely to extend far beyond just the known victims.

    Yet, to humans, Blue couldn’t have been sweeter or more loving. I had a whole collection of photos of him snuggling my nieces and nephews.

    We were lucky enough to see Blue quite often, so we have plenty of happy memories of him. Here are some of my favourites: 

    1. “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” (This one was actually Louis Catorze’s fault, but never mind.)
    2. “It’s raining food, hallelujah, it’s raining food.”
    3. “Poor beastie, thou maun live!”
    4. “When you chew the herb, it reveals you to yourself.”
    5. “Gorgeous meaty boy.”

    Much, much love to Blue’s mamma. You are welcome here at Le Château anytime that you’re missing cat cuddles. 

    Wherever you are, Blue, we hope you’re this happy.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le printemps capricieux

    This handsome chap was my mum’s gardening buddy at the weekend. No, he is not her cat.

    Astronomical spring arrived at the end of last week, and the Spring Zing really is a thing because Louis Catorze has been absolutely insufferable. 

    The little sod has been sleeping in a freezer bag (I KNOW) by day, then doing frenzied parkour, with vocal accompaniment, all over my bed at night. I’m starting to wonder whether the bag is secretly one of those infra-red regenerating saunas, powering him up for his nightly shenanigans. If so, I wish I knew how to inactivate it, but it seems to run from the same inexhaustible power supply as his Cloak of Invisibility.

    The freezer bag, with a bin liner nest to cushion la personne royale.

    The rest of our family cats have also discovered their own individual ways of marking the new season (although none are quite as weird as sleeping in a freezer bag).

    Otis and Roux love being outside, even in the depths of winter, so they couldn’t be more delighted that spring is here, granting them an extension to their usual nightly curfew. Otis likes relaxing in the gentle rays of spring sunshine, whilst his troublemaking sister watches him from afar, wondering whether to attack him now or later.

    She chose later.

    Zelva, erm, hasn’t even noticed that it’s spring. You’ll find her indoors, lounging on a bed or sofa: 

    Comfy, Zelva?

    Mothra also hasn’t noticed that it’s spring, due to still being in solitary, and has mostly been wriggling out of her Cône. So she’ll be remaining in supervised solitary until she can learn to behave or until the vet says Le Cône can come off, whichever comes first.  

    Still Côned, unless she can successfully escape from it (again).

    Rodan may or may not be aware that it’s spring but his focus has been on trying to fraternise with his sister, rather than on what’s going on outdoors. When not breaking the rules, he has been getting acquainted with his new favourite place:

    I’d subscribe to this channel.

    I hope that your furry overlords are all enjoying the new season. I’d love to hear about what they’ve been doing. 

    Matilda, who lives on the other side of the park, is getting her spring on.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Un saut périlleux dans l’avenir

    What is one word that describes you?

    Louis Catorze has been fine since that Sunday night when he did a somersault, landed on his head and almost knocked himself out. 

    So the one word that best describes him, right now, is lucky. Although Cat Daddy says that he can think of a few others.

    Catorze was glued to my side all through that night and the early hours of the next morning, which is something that hasn’t happened in a while. And, because I thought this was some sort of final adieu, I had a restless night’s sleep, constantly making sure that he was still breathing and that he wasn’t showing any signs of a fractured skull (not that I have the slightest idea what signs of a fractured skull looks like). But, the next day, Catorze was back to “normal” and up to his usual tricks of, erm, sleeping in a freezer bag, and drinking from our old wok which Cat Daddy put outside as a bird bath. 

    He dragged this across the hallway and sat in it.
    Another outdoor bar.

    I think we can assume that the little sod will be all right, so we will be able to look forward to many more of his nonsensical tomfoolery. One of those things makes us very happy indeed. 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Miel à la bouche, dard à la queue (Partie 5) 

    Mothra is sans Cône. Sadly this is not because the vet instructed it; it’s because she wriggled out. Yes, that’s despite the super-sturdy, and supposedly indomitable, MegaCône. Oh dear.

    Erm …?

    Because Rodan won’t stop going for his sister’s tail, the humans have had to increase Mothra’s time in solitary. 

    Obviously both cats are highly displeased by this. And the two of them have taken to sitting on opposite sides of the closed door, meowing at each other and (probably although we can’t prove it) communicating via prison sign language through the gap under the door. The only thing that stops this behaviour is my sister taking out her phone to video it.

    The cats’ human sister, aged five: “Maybe we also need to shut HIM [Rodan] in a room!”

    This is actually not the worst idea in the world. And it explains why they separate gang members in those massive maximum security penitentiaries in America.

    Luckily the house is big enough to house Rodan in B Wing and Mothra in C Wing. And, regretfully, it may well come to that. 

    Actual footage of Rodan and Mothra being escorted to their respective solitary cells. (Picture from Yahoo Movies.)

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • La couverture lestée (Partie 3)

    Louis Catorze has, somehow, worked through his phase of attacking the weighted blanket every time I unfold it. I don’t know how or why, but I’m glad that this has happened. 

    The blanket feels lovely when I’m cocooned in it but, on account of it being weighted (hence the name), unfolding it and putting it on is quite hard work. I find it quite challenging as a normal-sized human, so there’s no way that a 2.92kg cat should be able to manage it, right? 

    RIGHT? 

    This blanket had previously been folded up into a neat rectangle. I cannot fathom how teeny tiny Catorze managed to unfold it and spread it out across the sofa, yet that is what he did. 

    Look at the smug little sod. If you zoom in on his eyes, you’ll see that he’s not actually sleeping but just pretending:

    Cat Daddy calls this fake sleep “that creepy alligator thing”.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Miel à la bouche, dard à la queue (Partie 4)

    Mothra is continuing to recover well from her tail amputation. She’s eating and drinking fine, clambering on furniture, and she’s even managing to tuck her little stumpy tail around her arse when she sits down: 

    Awww.

    The greater challenge, it seems, has been keeping her segregated from her brother. The vet has given strict instructions that Rodan is not to sniff or lick her tail, as any infection of the surgery site could be disastrous. However, Rodan doesn’t want to heed the instructions and has taken to darting into Mothra’s isolation cell as soon as the door is opened, and going straight for his sister’s tail. 

    Luckily, so far, it’s been quite easy for the prison warden human to scoop him up and eject him. But he’s been persistent. And, as we all know, trying to stop a persistent Chat Noir is like trying to stop an oncoming train. 

    Didn’t some wise person once make a statement about never having more than one cat? Who might that have been, I wonder? 

    Mothra snuggles her fourth favourite human.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Avec les loups il faut hurler ou faire semblant de hurler 

    Which animal would you compare yourself to and why?

    Louis Catorze was definitely a baying wolf in his last life. 

    After the last Catorzian screaming video that I posted, a few people – including those who know him well – were concerned about his raspy throat. My sister even said, “What’s the noise at the end of the meow, like someone cutting something on a chopping board?”

    Unfortunately for us, this is part of Catorze’s normal voice.

    In case you missed it the last time. You’re welcome.

    His meows are dual-toned, with the initial “Mwah” followed by an “-ich”. That’s the way they have always been, with the urgency and volume usually being directly proportional to the length of time we’ve been away. I say “usually” because Catorze has been known, of course, to scream his guts out just because one of us has arrived home from work or the shops. And, equally, when we came home from a three-week holiday, he raised his head, looked at me with utter contempt and went back to sleep again. 

    So both the “Mwah-ich” and the volume are perfectly normal. Maybe not in the Cat Universe as a whole, but certainly in this house. And we never imagined that the screaming could deteriorate over time, yet here we are. So much for a quiet life with our senior geriatric cat. 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • La blessure est l’endroit où la lumière entre en vous

    Louis Catorze has just walloped his head badly on the tiled floor. 

    The little sod was playing with his pink butterfly on a string when it happened. Bizarrely, he wasn’t leaping for the toy. That actually might have made a bit of logical sense but, as you are probably aware by now, logical sense isn’t something that we do here at Le Château. 

    Catorze had actually caught the toy between his front paws and was standing with both back feet firmly on the ground. Then, for reasons that I will never understand, he decided to do a somersault, landing on his head. 

    The clunk was so loud that it even stopped Cat Daddy in his tracks, diverting his attention from the Derby della Madonnina for a good minute or so. Catorze himself looked quite shellshocked but then scratched his ear, shook himself down and pitter-pattered outside. 

    Me: “Oh God. What if he’s gone outside to find a quiet place to die?”

    Cat Daddy: “He’s probably just embarrassed.”

    Me: “Don’t be silly. Cats don’t know or care what embarrassment is.”

    Him: “It’s that toy. It’s probably got him stoned as hell. I bet he didn’t even know what he was doing, like those rock stars who OD on coke and stuff.”

    Erm, the toy didn’t have any catnip in it, but good try. 

    I have a really busy few weeks at work, so it’s absolutely the worst time to be checking Catorze every few minutes to make sure he hasn’t died from a bleed on the brain. And, in the event that I have to take him to the vet, would they even believe that my geriatric cat aged almost sixteen just randomly decided to do a somersault, for no reason?

    UPDATE: Catorze pitter-pattered back indoors again and has seemed normal (by his own pitifully low standards) ever since.

    The Sun King is fine.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Je suis bien dans ma peau, car elle est juste à ma taille

    What is the last thing you learned?

    Cat Daddy and I know that Louis Catorze is tiny. We’ve always known this. But, over the years, the little sod has mind-controlled us into using him as the benchmark for how all cats ought to be. And, recently, it has dawned on us just how much his freakishly small stature has skewed our world view on cat size. 

    We have just visited a dear friend in North Yorkshire, who has six cats. These were our reactions to each of them:

    Harley and Hendrix, the tux and cow-cat: “Rangy, meaty boys!” It turns out that they’re not. Harley is 4.1kg and Hendrix, 5kg, making them Normal Cats. 

    Normal.

    Their sister Snoodle was a little shy and spent much of our visit under cover, so it was quite difficult to see exactly how big she was. But when she dashed out from under one blanket to seek a second hiding place beneath another, we gasped, “She’s quite a meaty girl!” Nope. 5kg makes her also a Normal Cat.

    Nervous but still Normal.

    Ponder, the gigantic tabby: “Oof! What a hefty beast!” At 6.7kg, despite being over double Catorze’s weight, he is still a Normal Cat, albeit at the upper end of the range. 

    Normal.
    Oh my word, my hand looks tiny on him. But still Normal.

    Marigold and Treacle: “Ahh! Normal cats!” Well, yes and no. Both are at the lower end of the weight spectrum, at 3.5kg and 3.1kg respectively but, being older ladies with health issues, this is about right for them. Conclusion: Normal Cats. 

    Marigold: Normal.
    Treacle: Normal.

    So it turns out that Catorze, who was 2.92kg at his last vet visit, is the only one who isn’t a Normal Cat. 

    I know. It’s shocking news. Please sit down and take some time to absorb this.

    This is how we were greeted when we returned from our trip. Not Normal (although Normal for him).

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com