Louis Catorze has a complicated and bizarre water drinking ritual, which is as follows:

1. Approach drinking station and position himself appropriately, usually – although not always – with his back to the wall and facing outwards, to avoid stealth attacks from unknown enemies.

2. Sniff water to ensure that it isn’t poisoned.

3. Look around to make sure nobody is about to steal water.

4. Drink.

5. Sit for a few more minutes.

6. Make a couple of fake-puke sounds to scare us.

7. Drink some more.

8. Leave drinking station.

The whole thing usually takes about twenty minutes and is quite comical to watch, if you can be bothered.

However, yesterday morning I noticed that Catorze had completed steps 1 to 3 and was just sitting there. I glanced over to check that he had sufficient water, which he did. But then a further fifteen minutes elapsed and he still hadn’t drunk. This was somewhat unusual.

I decided to get up and check that there was nothing wrong with his water. It was then that I saw a big fat fly floating in it.

Now, Catorze is an avid hunter of flies. I have even seen him swipe them in mid-flight like King Kong with those planes or helicopters or whatever they were and, once they are mortally wounded, he snaps his jaws around them before they even hit the ground. Perhaps the problem was the fly being dead, therefore making the water gross and contaminated, yet I have also seen him drink from the ancient watering can which was here when we moved in. This predates time itself and contains untold horrors that I daren’t even attempt to discover (and I am pretty sure he doesn’t know what’s in that water, either, given that it’s dark when he sticks his head in).

So, clean water containing one fly: NON.

Stagnant, old rainwater containing stuff he can’t even see, most likely including 8,972 flies: OUAIS.

It’s good to know where Catorze’s line is. Even though it’s weird.