Month: Jun 2024

La chaleur d’une amitié

~ iamthesunking ~ 11 Comments

It is 28°C right now. To British people, this is hotter than a thousand suns. And, naturellement, now is the time that my fur-covered pet, who ordinarily couldn’t give a shite whether I live or die, wants to cuddle me.

At the beginning of the day, I thought Louis Catorze was dying. There was no sign of him at breakfast or lunch, and I finally found him in the spare room, almost lifeless and barely able to lift his head to emit a breathy, feeble croak. But, later that day, when the heat hit its height, the little sod was mysteriously rejuvenated by some hidden force (I don’t know what it was, but it certainly wasn’t food or water as he declined both) and that was when he wanted to sit on my lap.

Pretending to be at death’s door (LIES).

He won’t sit on bare legs because he doesn’t like the feeling of lying on skin, so it’s a firm NON to shorts and mini skirts. His preferences, in order, are a fluffy blanket, denim jeans or compression gym leggings, merci for asking.

So there I was, in stifling heat, sweltering under a blanket and a heat-radiating cat. Luckily it wasn’t peak hay fever time, otherwise I would most likely have had a beeswax candle burning, too.

The same animal, pictured later the same day.

It’s also going to be hot tomorrow. And, no doubt, the same thing will happen again. So please check on your British cat freak friends. We are not ok.

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

L’enfer a appelé et le diable a hurlé

~ iamthesunking ~ 22 Comments

How was Louis Catorze’s summer solstice? Well, I wouldn’t know. I barely saw him because he was constantly out, with his activities varying from sunbathing to fox-goading to Rodent Duty.

Oh yes, Rodent Duty. ‘Tis the season. Look at his silly little ears stood to attention:

Sunset Rodent Duty on the longest day.

In other news: another day, another Zoom call ruined. And it was with the same group of people as the previous, also-ruined, Zoom call.

For the first forty minutes of the hour-long call, my microphone didn’t work so, although I could hear everyone else, nobody could hear me and I was only able to communicate via the written chat. As I fussed and faffed with my settings trying to work out what had gone wrong, Catorze sat quietly beside me, well out of sight of the camera. Eventually he curled up into a little ball and went to sleep.

After forty minutes, I hit upon the magic formula which made the microphone work. And, naturellement, that was when Catorze bounced back to life.

He started by just walking across the camera field, dragging his tail across my face as he went. When it was my turn to speak, that was when he really decided to go for it (whatever “it” was), and the worst point was when he stood on my lap, his face in my face and his arse pointing camerawards, whining like a dying dog.

Everyone on the call responded in customary British fashion: ignoring it and pretending it wasn’t happening. Nobody’s face so much as twitched. And, as soon the call was over, Catorze decided that he no longer wanted to whine, and went back to sleep.

I shouldn’t be surprised, given that this little weasel DESTROYED my online lessons and staff meetings during lockdown. But at least, back then, there was a spate of cats doing the same thing. By now, the rest of them have found better things to do.

What is WRONG with him? What do we do?

I’d far rather the Zoom callers had seen this end than the other.

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

Le festin perpétuel

~ iamthesunking ~ 22 Comments

How do you waste the most time every day?

Probably by reading and writing about cats, although I don’t consider it a waste. I consider it time well spent, especially when I read about cats who are bigger shites than mine. (Unbelievably, there are some out there.)

I don’t know what is happening to the cats of TW8, but they seem to be involved in some sort of Synchronised Piss-Take at the moment. Several cat owners have been posting messages on our local neighbourhood forum, asking everyone not to feed their cats because the little sods are chubbing up from all the extra meals.

Generally the reaction has been sensible: most people are in agreement that you should absolutely not feed someone else’s cat without permission. But a small minority have surprised me with their responses. Some people have advised the original posters to keep their cats indoors; apparently, if you let your cats out, then you should expect “kind” people to feed them. Erm.

Then there was this person. Their profile photo is that of a cat, but I am starting to wonder if that’s just a stock photo. If this comment is genuine and not satire, clearly they have never met a cat before:

The name has been obscured to save them from embarrassment.

As you know, Louis Catorze is inordinately fussy and wouldn’t be interested in food offered by random people. However, I’m pretty sure his big brother, Luther, would have happily eaten rusty razorblades if someone had drizzled them with fish stock first, whether he were hungry or not. He was also king of the Second Dinner Trick and, once, had me scrabbling through bins counting empty cans, because I didn’t know whether feeding him twenty minutes beforehand was real or just a dream.

Worryingly, some people agreed with the commenter above. Are they mind-numbingly stupid? Or are they simply one stage along in the subversive brainwashing process that cats are conducting on us, in preparation for their world takeover?

At least nobody on the forum has (yet) posted to say, “There’s a stray black kitten in my garden, who won’t leave my husband/boyfriend/brother alone”. I’m all ready with the “It must be some other black cat” trademark response.

“It wasn’t moi.”

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

La joie de l’été

~ iamthesunking ~ 18 Comments

It’s the summer solstice. Usually Cat Daddy and I would be doing something fun as it’s also our wedding anniversary, but I still have the last few dregs of Covid. So we will probably spend the day cooking separate meals and sitting in separate rooms instead.

Meanwhile, Louis Catorze is out. As soon as Cat Daddy puts the cushions out on our outdoor seating, Catorze is there.

Le Roi has left the building.

That said, he still makes time to keep his Coviddy maman company. Two nights ago, when I was getting ready for bed at some desperately early still-daylight hour, I decided to call him in for a goodnight cuddle. Catorze is pretty good at coming when he’s called, but he was outside so, being too lazy to go to him, I knew that I’d have to shout pretty loudly for him to hear me across the hallway and out through the open bathroom window. So I opened the bedroom door and bellowed his name with all his might.

I then head a “Mwah” and pitter-pattering paws. It turned out that Catorze had actually come up to the bedroom and wasn’t outside at all. In my haste to project my voice as far as I could, I hadn’t seen him at my feet, and my shouting had scared him. Oh dear.

So, whilst I sit trying to drown the Covid with Lemsip*, Sa Maj is out. Again. And, even though I have seen the silhouette of Foxy Loxy slinking through the half-light, I know that the little sod can handle himself.

*Lemsip does not cure Covid. I know this. It just makes my brain feel that I’m doing something to help myself.

Happy Solstice to you all.

He just abandoned a salutation to the sun. You can actually hear him mutter, “Nah, sod it”.

L’âge donne le sens

~ iamthesunking ~ 24 Comments

How do you want to retire?

Louis Catorze is, apparently, seventy-two in cat years, so he is well into retirement. However, nobody seems to have told him this. Or, if they have, he hasn’t listened.

To outsiders, he still looks like a playful little kitten, doing all the other things that he did whilst younger: jumping onto and off beds, 3am parkour, scaling high fences to go wandering somewhere he has no business being, and so on. He still eats, drinks, plays and screams. He even still hunts from time to time.

But, one morning last week, when I followed him downstairs for breakfast, I noticed that he wasn’t galloping down as he usually does. Instead, he would gallop a couple of steps, then take a couple gently, then gallop again, and so on.

Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: he is finally starting to show signs of his age, reminding us that he is an old man and not a rambunctious kitten. This made me a little sad, but then he doesn’t know that he’s an old man. And, if he did, he wouldn’t give a shit.

Here he is, wondering whether to show off his apex predator hunting prowess or just bid the bird a friendly bonjour. Turn the volume up:

(Spoiler alert: he went for the latter.)

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

Un lion se voit, pas un virus

~ iamthesunking ~ 20 Comments

Who do you spend the most time with?

Merde, merde and thrice merde: I have Covid. In some ways I’m glad there is, at least, an explanation for why I feel so shite, and conducting the test in front of Cat Daddy soon put a lid on all his “Are you sure it’s not hay fever?” nonsense.

I should have known that something was afoot when Louis Catorze spent the whole weekend on my lap, not even budging through my sneezes. He doesn’t have much patience for, erm, patients, and he makes his irritation quite plain when I’m ill.

Unless it’s Covid. For reasons that nobody understands, when it’s Covid he is an affectionate and attentive nursemaid and won’t leave my side.

So, from Friday to today, I’ve spent every waking minute, and probably every sleeping one too, with Catorze.

This isn’t all some massive coincidence, because he’s done it before. I could have made an absolute fortune had I rented him out when Covid was rife; this kind of skill is right up there with those dogs who can sniff out cancer, dead bodies and whether or not a fire was started deliberately. (Different dogs, I mean, each doing just one of those things. I don’t suppose the same dogs can do all three.)

At least the football is on. And at least I don’t have to work on Mondays.

Here is Catorze, snuggled up against me. This is both heart-tuggingly cute and creepy as hell:

Little sod probably just wants to watch me die.

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

Tel père, tel fils

~ iamthesunking ~ 16 Comments

Today is Fathers’ Day in the UK, and I have bought Cat Daddy this delightful gift:

For a few seconds I thought this said “10”, which would have been dreadful … but also very funny.

No doubt he will be absolutely furious, not just at the waste of money on “unsolicited cat tat”, as he puts it, but at the fact that I accidentally made his hair much greyer than it really is. This was partly because I was on a crowded bus at the time of choosing the personalisation, and therefore wasn’t concentrating properly, but also because I just didn’t remember.

Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: I actually FORGOT the hair colour of my husband of fifteen years, and didn’t realise until I arrived home that day and looked at him properly. Oh dear.

Could I pinpoint Louis Catorze’s white hairs with greater accuracy? Probably, yes.

Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely day, whether or not you choose to celebrate. Cat Daddy will be enjoying it from his default position: underneath Catorze.

On this fine day, Cat Daddy decided to relax outside with a magazine. Catorze said NON.

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

L’ange noir qui veille sur mon berceau

~ iamthesunking ~ 19 Comments

What notable things happened today?

Just the usual screaming. You know how it is.

Furthermore, Louis Catorze’s screaming is getting worse. None of us ever thought this possible, but it’s happening.

When I told Cat Daddy about the incident with the beautician, asking, “What on earth could have been wrong with him that day?”, Cat Daddy pointed out that it wasn’t just that day; Catorze is like that all the time.

This is how Catorze’s bullying escalates if he doesn’t get attention:

1. Just screaming*

2. Screaming + sitting at our feet, staring at us

3. Screaming + jumping onto the sofa next to us, staring

4. Screaming + placing front paws on our lap, staring into our face

5. Screaming + placing back paws on our lap and front paws on our chest

6. Screaming + head-butting our hands

7. Screaming + knocking drinks, books or phones out of our hands (yes, he’s scalded me with hot tea more than once)

*I say “JUST screaming” as if being on the lower end of the scale isn’t so terrible but, trust me, this is bad. The bar starts very low and just sinks progressively lower.

Catorze was a particularly psychotic hell-beast the night before I had planned to a ten-mile walk with my friend. You know those nights when you think, “I really need a good sleep because I have a very important thing to do tomorrow”? Yeah, it was one of those. For the few nights before that, I hadn’t heard a peep from him and he’d just cuddled quietly in bed, hence why I stupidly thought he’d behave on the eve of my walk. Oh, and the already-demanding ten miles turned into a tragic thirteen because we got lost, so it really wasn’t great to have had the Catorzian disturbance the night before.

What on earth do we do, Mesdames et Messieurs? There has to be a solution other than investing in earplugs?

No, you go ahead and relax. Don’t mind us.

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

Un chat inoubliable

~ iamthesunking ~ 22 Comments

A couple of nights ago, Cat Daddy and I settled down on the sofa to watch the latest series of Unforgotten on Netflix. Usually, when we watch television in the evenings, Louis Catorze is on his papa’s lap. But, this time, we didn’t know where he was.

Cat Daddy, a few minutes into the first episode: “This isn’t right. He’s always with us in the evenings.”

Me: “It’s fine. He’s probably arsing around outside somewhere.”

Him: “This sort of thing isn’t like him.”

Me: “What do you mean? It’s EXACTLY like him.”

Him: “Something’s wrong. We need to go and look for him.”

Cat Daddy, might I add, was a couple of bottles of wine under at the time, and in no fit state to be going up and down stairs looking for Catorze. So, when he said “WE need to go and look for him”, we both knew that he meant just me.

My strategy was to start searching in the places that I really didn’t want him to be and, would you believe, he was in the first/only place that I looked: on top of a freshly-cleaned duvet (not a duvet COVER, but an ACTUAL DUVET) which is now no longer clean.

Bastard cat.

I brought the little sod downstairs and placed him into the lap of his overjoyed papa. After a little Boys’ Club drunken roughhousing and some name-calling of the Unrepeatable Expletive variety, the two of them were friends again and snuggled up together to continue watching Unforgotten.

Cat Daddy will always try to have people believe that, of the two of us, I am the one who is obsessed with Catorze and who frets about him every waking minute.

May this post serve as proof that it’s all lies.

Loving all the needless fuss about him.

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

Graviter autour du soleil

~ iamthesunking ~ 17 Comments

The only thing more embarrassing than having a black cat with bright white ears, is other people knowing that you have a black cat with bright white ears. So, naturellement, the last time that I applied Louis Catorze’s ear sunblock, he escaped out at The Front when I put some recycling out.

I didn’t even realise until I heard feline screaming and people talking. I was completely torn as to what to do: leaving him out there would ensure maximum street-embarrassment, but then if I called him in, everyone would know he was my cat (and there was no guarantee that he’d come in anyway).

In the end I opened the door and pretended (!) to put more recycling out, at which point he ran in having only shown himself up in front of a couple of people. Not great, but could have been much worse.

However, Catorze wasn’t done there. That evening, I had a Zoom call with a group of people whom I hadn’t met before. You know how this is going to play out, don’t you?

There I was, settled comfortably and listening intently to the person who was leading the call, when he appeared. Astonishingly, he didn’t make a sound and, instead, just walked across the camera field from right to left, then left to right, over and over again, brushing his up-tail against my face as he went.

Eventually the back and forth became ridiculous, so I had to pluck him off one-handedly (easy to do as he’s so gossamer-light) and place him to one side. That was when he screamed, startling everyone on the call and having one person say, “That sounded like a baby!”

Nobody commented on the bright white ears. I guess they must have either thought they were naturally like that, or that I painted them for fun.

Curiously, the little sod did settle down after that, lying on my lap and appearing to concentrate on the voice of the main speaker. It seems to be that, when women are speaking, he shuts up. But, when it’s men (or boys), he runs riot.

I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise to anyone.

Here he is, gadding about on his outdoor sofa, with the bright white ears on display. You can even see the smears where he’s tried to roll off the sunblock onto some surface or other:

Yuck.

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

L’avenir appartient aux chats

~ iamthesunking ~ 15 Comments

A couple of nights ago, Cat Daddy and I sat down to watch the live election debate between our current Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Louis Catorze joined us, taking his usual place on his papa’s lap.

Fifteen minutes in and I’d had enough; all they did was shout over each other (the election candidates, I mean, not Catorze and Cat Daddy). And it seemed I wasn’t alone in finding it quite jarring and stressful because, just as I stood up to go and do something else, Catorze stepped onto the remote control and changed channels.

Cat Daddy: “OH, FOR ****’S SAKE! LOUIS, YOU ****!”

Catorze: “Mwah!”

Fresh from being sworn at by his papa.

I adjourned from the kitchen to the living room to watch something more relaxing – demonic possessions, serial killers, whatever – whilst Cat Daddy tried to rewind back to the point where he’d left off. Catorze, whose work was done, came to sit with me for a short while, then escaped out at The Front when Cat Daddy put out the recycling.

The next day, the general consensus regarding the election debate was that neither candidate covered themselves in glory. In other words, Catorze’s thinking was in line with that of the nation.

Or was the nation in line with Catorze? And is this all part of the World Domination Plan?

Larry the Downing Street cat is officially sick of all this shit. (Picture from Yahoo News.)

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

Les plus bavardes des perruches

~ iamthesunking ~ 27 Comments

Although the idea of being awoken by sweet birdsong is romantic, the reality is somewhat different. In the summer months, London’s resident parakeets – yes, we really do have them living wild here – start their infernal racket at 4am. Although they’re strikingly pretty birds, there’s nothing nice about the noise that they make (nor about the time that they start).

Bastard birds.

Louis Catorze can compete with any animal in terms of noise and, just because he can, he does. Also, because black cats are born without the chromosome that makes them mind their own business, when the parakeets are shrieking he is compelled to respond. Even if this makes them shriek more. ESPECIALLY if this makes them shriek more.

Here he is, having just retaliated. Their heads were tilted to look at the source of the scream, but this also gives them a disapproving, judgemental air:

Oh good grief.

Just like the sunblock on the ears, we have a whole summer of this ahead of us. Quelle joie.

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