We have now lived through pretty much a whole week of having to medicate Louis Catorze three times a day. (Well, when I say “We”, I actually mean just me; somehow Cat Daddy has declared himself exempt from the task, just by being catastrophically bad at it.)

And, whilst the odd attempt was better than expected, it was mostly as one would imagine: a Mad Max-style, bare-knuckle fight to the death. That is, until a fellow cat freak had the genius idea of dropping the medication onto his fur and letting him lick it off, thus sparing us the jaws of doom. (Thank you, Caroline!)

Mind you, this only worked for a day or so; after that the little sod stopped licking it off, choosing instead to eyeball me menacingly as he let it air-dry on his body. And his rigorous grooming regime meant that it was all brushed out at the end of the day anyway. So we had to suffer his stiff, sticky, unpleasant-to-stroke fur and brush out the mess, whilst he got away with ingesting no medication whatsoever.

I had no choice but to revert back to the gladiatorial combat.

Luckily it’s all over now and Le Roi’s foot has healed, so we can enjoy counting down the final few days before his big night on the 31st. Let’s hope he manages to stay out of trouble until then.