Our road is being resurfaced at the moment, and Cat Daddy has had a good old moan about the fact that the trucks have been waking us up at 7am. Even though he is retired and doesn’t have to go to work. And even though 7am isn’t THAT early.

If you have never had your road resurfaced, I’m sure you can imagine the process. And most cats would not be too pleased about it. Louis Catorze, on the other hand, is relaxed, curious and interested – most likely because of the workmen – and happily sits and listens to the trucks, swishing his tail.

The combination of machinery, toxic air and hot tar make The Front a highly unsuitable place for cats to be right now. And, naturellement, the fact that it is highly unsuitable will make it more inviting than ever. So the Front-facing windows are remaining firmly shut whilst the work is taking place, and we are taking extra care that Catorze doesn’t bolt when we open the front door. The last thing I want is to discover that he has been steamrollered flat and become one with the road surface, and the second-from-last thing I want is for the workmen to knock on the door and ask if the screaming, fanged beast, who got stuck to the tarmac mid-roll, belongs to us.

(And if I may be permitted to have a third-from-last thing, too: I don’t want Sa Maj flirting, rolling and distracting the workmen from their duties, resulting in what was meant to be a long weekend of roadworks taking a month. Trust me, he would do it without hesitation.)

This picture, taken last spring, demonstrates perfectly why the road needed resurfacing and also why Catorze can’t be trusted unsupervised at The Front:

This week I left the front door open by accident after putting out some recycling. Louis Catorze, without so much as a blink, seized the opportunity to escape out at The Front – YES, AGAIN – and, when Cat Daddy went to shut the door, he found the little sod screaming at a random passer-by in the street.

Now, of the 835 occasions that Catorze has caused mayhem in the street, we have probably only been present for a couple. It’s embarrassing enough when That Neighbour escorts him back to Le Château and we have to imagine all the horrific things he’s done whilst out on the rampage. But nothing – je répète, NOTHING – is as mortifying as actually being there. Because not only do people then know that he is our cat, but we are also obliged to Do Something About It.

(And, yes, Cat Daddy did once try to scurry past Catorze in the street, pretending not to know him. But the little sod chased him down like a wolf hunting a rabbit, screaming himself witless, and there was no escape.)

There was a brief conversation between Cat Daddy and the lady, and I heard him say, “Yes, he’s a noisy one, isn’t he?” Then he and Catorze came in, with Cat Daddy rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

He has not spoken about it since, and I have a feeling he never will.

This video was taken mid-February and isn’t of the actual incident – because I wasn’t there, thank God – but I suspect he sounded exactly like this. He’s a noisy one, indeed:

Someone had a massive telling-off from his daddy this week, after disappearing out at The Front and being gone all night.

To make matters worse, Cat Daddy had planned a big bike ride for the next morning and, of course, a poor night’s sleep stressing about an idiot cat isn’t exactly the best preparation for such a thing. The little sod did this on purpose.

I woke up that morning to the sound of faraway screaming, and I knew in an instant that Louis Catorze was out at The Front. Sure enough, when I opened the front door, he dashed in, bellowing indignantly, then headed straight for his glass of water.

I called up to Cat Daddy to let him know that he’d dropped the ball again (because he was the one who’d been on Late Shift after I‘d gone to bed), and he replied, “Thank God!” Then came the full story of the previous night’s fiasco:

Usually, if we sit in the front room with the window open, we can keep an eye on Catorze as he sits on the window sill and surveys his royaume. However, that night, very unusually, he’d decided to do a runner and hide.

Cat Daddy went out twice with his torch during the early hours of that morning, peering into neighbours’ gardens and bins – all the while fully aware that such behaviour usually results in the police being called – but there was no sign of Catorze. Now, if you’re at The Front at that time of the night/morning and a member of your family is out there looking for you, you cannot possibly be unaware of it. Unless, of course, you are a horrid little shite who is deliberately trying not to be found.

Eventually, at 1:25am, Cat Daddy came home empty-handed and went to bed. He usually sleeps very well but he had a terrible night, wondering if every sound was Catorze in distress and mentally planning the distribution of the “Missing” posters.

Anyway, by some miracle Sa Maj actually hadn’t bothered any of the neighbours during his overnight jaunt, although Cat Daddy sleepily overheard “an exchange of some sort” when the Abel and Cole parcel came at around 7am, and he now wonders if perhaps Catorze had accosted the delivery man. And we have agreed that our boy now needs a Front Curfew: 10pm on normal nights, possibly earlier on troublesome nights such as Friday 13th, Hallowe’en or a full moon.

This is worse than being the parents of a wayward teenager.

*EDIT: The night that we agreed the curfew time, Catorze actually returned of his own accord through the front window at 9:57pm. Cat Daddy and I found this satisfying yet also creepy beyond belief.