I would ordinarily be back at school today, but I’ve had a setback which required more surgery to fix it. This second round of recovery has been much harder than the original one, but I’ve been trying to take it easy and not do too much.
Usually Louis Catorze has very little tolerance for sick people. However, this time around he has only been about 65% coolly indifferent, morphing into a sweet and loving kitty for the remaining 35% of the time. On one occasion, when he saw how upset I was, he ran towards me and almost knocked himself out with my phone in his haste to cuddle me.
(Yes, it was definitely him. No other fanged black cat had broken into our house at the time.)
However, before you conclude that Catorze has changed his ways and developed a sense of empathy, don’t be too quick to trust the little sod. This lucky photo, which only happens once in an eternity, when the stars are aligned in a very particular way, gives us a glimpse into his soulless self. You can even see the gap where his heart ought to be:
Come on. It’s hardly a massive shock.
His nurturing ways are all lies. I fear that he’s up to something.
After arriving home one day, Cat Daddy was greeted by this sight:
For crying out loud.
Yes, it’s annoying enough that Louis Catorze would have pulled the blanket off the radiator to sleep on it. However, what really irked me is that he was the reason why it the blanket needed washing and drying in the first place.
The little sod was slapping his tail around (which he does when he’s happy – yes, I know it’s weird) with such force that he knocked my mug right over, spilling matcha latte all over the blanket:
Ugh.
Anyway, the blanket has been washed and is now clean. However, it’s only a matter of time until the next stupid thing happens. And, because I’m not back at work just yet, no doubt I’ll have a ringside seat.
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
Playtime for Louis Catorze is any moment that humans want him to sit down and shut up.
If you followed Le Blog through lockdown, you will know how much Catorze loves to disrupt video calls. Lessons with students, staff meetings, the recording of a podcast with the Ultimate Boss of the whole education group, all ruined. Not even Cat Daddy has escaped unscathed; being the favourite human doesn’t prevent him from also having his online meetings destroyed.
A couple of days before Christmas, I attended an NHS webinar with some GPs and patients from our local area. In the nicest possible way, this was never going to be the most exciting social event of the year. Perhaps that was why Louis Catorze decided to do what he did – after all, nothing livens up a dreary call quite like repeated torrents of ear-bleeding feline screaming, non?
I found out the hard way that this meant turn the robot to face 5 o’clock (where the fingers are pointing) not 9 o’clock (to face the hand). For God’s sake, Microsoft Teams.
The meeting started at 19:00 and, upon hearing the irresistible, come-hither sound of male doctors talking about patient waiting lists, Catorze appeared at 19:01. He screamed himself senseless for a few minutes, headbutting my phone, bug-eyed and manic, but he seemed to give up when he failed to detect me being mortally embarrassed, trying to shush him, and so on.
The gods must have been on my side on that fateful night, because the organisers of the meeting had disabled all our microphones and cameras. So the only way of communicating would have been to type a message onto the chat; Catorzian evil may be powerful, but it’s not THAT powerful.
When he realised that the potential to humiliate me was zero, the little sod tired of being a shite and settled down on my lap, listening happily to the talk of online booking systems and pharmaceutical services. Then he went to sleep.
My life must be pretty pathetic for me to feel such joy at getting one over on a cat. Yet here we are.
Cat Daddy left some recycling in the hall, to be put outside as soon as we figure out what day it’s being collected. If your British friends aren’t replying to your messages, trust me, it’s because they’re trying to work this out, too. We’re all over the place when public holidays end up displacing Bin Day.
Et alors?
Nothing to see here, you may think. Except that, when Cat Daddy left the recycling, the white box in the middle was the right way up, and the plastic bag was inside it.
We all know who is responsible for messing it up, partly because neither Cat Daddy nor I would have had the inclination to do it, but also because the guilty party has a record of climbing into boxes and thrashing around, just for fun. Yet it takes some effort to completely remove something from a box, and to leave said box upended.
This is Louis Catorze’s handiwork. We can’t prove it, but we know it.
Cat Daddy: “[A string of Unrepeatable Expletives, utterly inappropriate for the season of goodwill.]”
Is this an indication of what 2025 is going to be like? Do we even want to find out?
Enjoy your festivities, whatever you do, and I hope your furry overlords stay safe and behave.
I recently bought myself a lamp with a zillion different colour settings. However, I always have it on red, because red is said to counteract the negative effects of blue light from our phones, and to promote healing and relaxation. Yes, I know: since I live with Louis Catorze, I probably should have got a lamp for each room, and strapped an extra one to his head for good measure.
Cat Daddy always tells me that a red light makes Le Château look “like a brothel”. I just ignore this, although I am curious to about how he knows what a brothel looks like.
Anyway, it turns out that Catorze likes red light almost as much as I do. After a long period of not sleeping in my bed with me and choosing, instead, to go gadding about outside all night, since I introduced wind-down period of red light before going to sleep, he’s been a constant companion. I can’t help but hope that it will have a calming effect on him, too; his screaming and galloping around have been absolutely awful recently.
Naturellement I couldn’t resist a photo session in the red light, to add to the 12,967 photos that I already have of Catorze. I think a ruby backdrop rather suits him, non?
We have all eaten well at Le Château over the last few days.
Cat Daddy and I enjoyed our Christmas dinner, albeit a day late because I was sick on the 25th. The squirrels of TW8 have been feasting on some very old hazelnuts from the year before last, still in their shells, which Cat Daddy hid around the garden “to make them work for it” (?). And Louis Catorze is gorging his way through his Cool Cat Club wet food, faster than we can dish it out. In fact, we had to bring forward the delivery date of his next shipment and, although we did so well in advance, the last few days were quite anxious, with an eye on the ever-dwindling supply and an ear at the door listening out for the delivery driver.
Having Catorze back on wet food again has transformed my life. And not in a good way.
Breakfast time is now a massive screamathon, with the little sod hollering his guts out if I’m too slow* at dishing up his Cool Cat Club wet food. He then guzzles down a whole serving, plus a scoop of Orijen, licks his plate clean, then stares mournfully when a second serving doesn’t materialise.
We have always found it odd that Catorze screamed when he wanted cuddles, yet stayed chillingly silent and just creepy-stared when he wanted food. However, we needn’t worry about that anymore.
Adieu to the peaceful mornings that I posted about here. It’s screaming all the way from now on.
Enjoying the Boxing Day football on his papa’s lap.
So the idea is that, if you’re good, Santa brings you gifts. And, if you’re naughty, Krampus wallops you with a stick, shoves you into a sack and carts you off to be eaten later. I’ve got that right, non?
Except, sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way. Sometimes you can be naughty and not only escape punishment, but end up being rewarded.
This large sod is Boots, usurper stepbrother of Antoine, Louis Catorze’s frère-from-another-mère:
Yes, that is a Chelsea FC collar.
You may have seen him on Le Blog in the past, most likely for the wrong reasons.
Boots’ behaviour all year saw him headed for Santa’s Naughty List. However, the incident that truly sealed the deal was at the start of Mercury Retrograde, when he aggravated an existing fight wound whilst scrapping with one of his many Neighbourhood Nemeses (Nemesisses?) and ended up requiring not only expensive vet treatment, but a stint in Le Cône.
Boots had never had to wear Le Cône before. However, rather than glumly accepting his fate and moping around, as most Côned cats do, he fought like an absolute demon trying to shake it off. In doing so he managed to rub Le Cône against his wound and aggravate it AGAIN, so back to the vet he went.
His long-suffering mamma and the veterinary staff agreed that he would be better off staying there whilst the wound healed, since he clearly couldn’t be trusted to behave at home.
Boots ended up living at the veterinary surgery for three and a half weeks and, during this time, he underwent a complete personality transformation: once in Le Beignet (the inflatable doughnut below), he stopped trying to fight his way out of it (although he did succeed in puncturing it). He was polite and cordial to the staff, and he even tried to make friends with the other cats that he met, quite the opposite of what he does at home.
Chilling in Le Beignet.De-Beigneted and exploring his holiday home.“Make yourself at home”, they said. So he did.
Just when life couldn’t get any better for Boots, he became the supermodel cat for the vet’s Christmas charity campaign. Here he is, enjoying being top cat on their social media marketing material:
Poster boy.
It doesn’t seem right, does it? But then such is the nature of Mercury Retrograde which, even when passed, still leaves a trail of bullshittery in its wake. It’s also typical of this time of year in general; during Yuletide festivities of years gone by, a Lord of Misrule would be appointed to incite debauched behaviour and ensure that everything was as chaotic and disordered as possible. And a massive shite of a cat strutting around in his staffed AirBnB, all the while being treated like a king, is about as chaotic and disordered as it gets.
I hope that your Christmas is as merry as Boots’ last few weeks have been. Even though Catorze is very much Team Antoine, he nonetheless approves of the principle of reaping undeserved riches and being an arrogant arse about it.
It’s the winter solstice and, as ever, I tend to spend this time of year reflecting on the past twelve months. 2024 hasn’t really been the best, what with ill health, bereavement and suchlike, but at least next year has to be better, non?
Louis Catorze sadly lost a couple of his (younger) comrades this year: Lucky, one of the Northern tuxedo cat gang, and Samba, the sparring partner of Catorze’s departed cousin, King Ghidorah.
Have a look here if you’d like to read about the time we met Lucky and his siblings, all dressed for the black tie gala. And look here for one of the many times that Samba and King Ghidorah tired of alfresco scrapping and continued in my sister’s house. (You know when people want to ramp it up a notch and they say, “I think we ought to step outside”? Well, they stepped INSIDE.)
Lucky relaxes in a sunbeam.Lost something, Samba? Maybe try looking in, I dunno … YOUR OWN HOUSE?
We send lots of love to Lucky’s and Samba’s humans.
At the risk of sounding repetitive – I’m aware that I say something like this every winter solstice – it’s nothing short of miraculous that Catorze, despite old age creeping up behind him and placing an icy hand firmly on his shoulder, is continuing to thrive.
(Cat Daddy: “It’s not miraculous. It’s all the bloody expensive food we give him.”)
And not only do our own ears and eyes tell us that he’s doing well, but we have quantitative evidence to confirm this, too: his steroid injection requirement is reducing, with only seven needed this year versus eight last year and ten in 2022.
We are so fortunate to still have Catorze with us, and we can’t wait to see what he will unleash upon world next year, when he turns fifteen. And, despite being the most ungrateful and arrogant little sod ever to exist, we are pretty sure that he likes living with us, too.
Happy winter solstice to you all. Thank you for another year of supporting Catorze.
Rodan is leaving the tree alone, but the presents aren’t safe.
We have a winner in our Feline Tree-Destroying Race. However, although we have narrowed it down to a household, we still don’t know which cat was the guilty party. So it’s possible that both defendants may have to be acquitted.
Here is the main piece of evidence presented by the prosecution:
Oh, Otis!
Now, if you zoom in on Otis’s face, he certainly looks sheepish, as if he has something to hide. But the defence would like to point out that, when this photo was taken, he had just been de-flead and had slithered under the tree to express his displeasure. The ornament and string of lights were already like that when he took refuge in his sulking spot, and nobody knows who was responsible.
Therefore we cannot prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Otis did it, nor that his sister, Roux, DIDN’T do it. Case dismissed.
In somewhat related news, on Wednesday morning, not long after the Otis-or-Maybe-Roux incident and a few hours before our tree arrived, I came downstairs to this:
Oh, Catorze!
Our interim mini-tree, which has sat happily in the hearth for days, was down – and, because holly berries are not exactly the best thing for cats*, I was then on my hands and knees, desperately sweeping up. Clearly the fact that we didn’t yet have a tree wasn’t going to deter Louis Catorze from felling a tree.
Anyway, our main tree is finally here, and Catorze struck gold when it turned out that the nice delivery gentleman loved cats. He described a purring, flirting Catorze as “very chatty” (yup) and an “absolute angel” (ahem), and he was genuinely sad to have to tear himself away to do his next delivery. If your tree was late, you know whose fault that is.
Putting up the lights and decorations would have been no problem – and quite fun, in fact – with two fully-operational hands. It was considerably more difficult with just one, and we all know whose fault that is, too.
Now, let’s see how long it can last.
Pondering whether to ruin all my efforts now or later.
*Catorze can be trusted not to eat berries so we can have holly in the house, once a year. Plus there is holly in the garden, and in many of our neighbours’ gardens, and he hasn’t come a-cropper yet. However, if your cat is a muncher, or even if you’re not sure, play safe and avoid.
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
Louis Catorze loves men and, whenever groups of people visit us, he will seek out the gentlemen of the party. I don’t know a cat can know what a man is and what a woman is, but he does. Years ago, when he was off his nut on Gabapentin and not very well, Catorze still had the strength to drag himself off our female guest’s lap and onto that of her husband.
But, really, every visiting man has an impact on Catorze, whether it be family members, friends, tradesmen, delivery drivers, whoever.
Cat Daddy’s daughter and her husband are staying with us this week. Son-in-Law grew up with animals and has always had them in his life. In fact, one of his childhood cats used his outdoor Wendy House structure to stash animal remains from her kills, and these were only discovered by his horrified parents once, erm, a sizeable amount had built up. Despite this, he loves cats, and has even chat-sat Catorze before. And, since Catorze loves him, too, the little sod can’t resist showing off.
This has mostly taken the form of screaming. He screams all the time, we know. However, we have observed that he does it when Son-in-Law isn’t giving him attention, then falls silent when he is. It’s not just random screaming; it’s very targeted, in order to achieve a goal. And it works.
When outside at The Back, Catorze often sits at the patio door like a Victorian child outside a sweet shop, gazing mournfully at whoever is indoors. Every so often he screams. However, with a new gentleman playmate as a spectator, he decided to ramp things up a notch.
I was sitting in the kitchen, talking to our son-in-law about football, and I happened to be facing away from the patio door. I didn’t even know that Catorze could be seen through the glass.
Me: “Blah blah next away game blah blah …”
Son-in-Law, interrupting: “Sorry, but … WHAT IS LOUIS DOING?”
I turned to look. The little sod was reared up on his hind legs, eyes wide, battering at the glass with his front paws and screaming absolute bloody murder.
Actual footage of what Catorze looked like through the glass. (Picture from tumblr.com.)
Never have I seen him do this when he has a perfectly good route in.
Me, trying to hide my embarrassment: “Oh, just ignore him. He’s pretending to be stuck outside.”
Him: “So he’s … NOT stuck outside?”
Me: “No, he’s just being a shite.”
Now, we all know the story of the boy who cried wolf, don’t we? Even though Catorze practically invented false alarms, part of me did worry that the one day I failed to respond to the SOS would be the day that the cat flap malfunctioned, that there was a bloodthirsty wolf on the prowl outside, or some such thing.
We continued our conversation about football but, all the while, I had one ear at the back door, listening out for wolf sounds.
None came.
And, a few minutes later, when Son-in-Law’s back was turned, Catorze came in through the cat flap with no issue whatsoever.
Here he is, on the lookout for the next man. Would he launch a stealth aerial attack as they walked up the stairs? Absolutely.
Merde: I have cut my thumb on a can of Louis Catorze’s wet food. You won’t be surprised to hear that this was because he was screaming and screaming at me as I struggled to open it and, in my fluster, my hand slipped.
If you’ve watched any action films, EVER, you will know that tasks requiring both speed and dexterity – loading guns, defusing bombs, finding the right key among a big bunch of wrong ones whilst the killer is chasing you, that kind of thing – don’t work well under extreme pressure. If you want the job done properly, just be patient and let the person get on with it, otherwise their hands will scrabble and wobble and it will all go wrong, even if they’ve done the task a thousand times before without any issue.
However, unfortunately nobody has told Catorze this. I can’t prove it, but I know that this would never have happened if he’d just shut up and waited quietly.
I haven’t seen so much blood since – well, since two days after my surgery*. There was blood in the kitchen sink from where I tried to wash the wound, blood all over the floor from when I, erm, ran to get my phone to take a photo in case Cat Daddy didn’t believe how bad it was, BLOOD EVERYWHERE.
*There was An Incident after the removal of my cannula, so bad that they had to replace the CURTAINS surrounding my hospital bed. That’s all you need to know.
And all the while, through me bouncing from foot to foot in pain and tearing off copious amounts of kitchen towel to mop up the never-ending mess, Catorze circled me like a hungry saltwater crocodile, screaming his guts out.
The photo ended up being redundant; not only is it too gross to show people but, because the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding, rendering me unable to open cupboards and drawers looking for a plaster, I had to wake Cat Daddy for help. So he ended up seeing the full horror of it, anyway. He was pretty good about being woken up but, as soon as I told him how I’d done it, he said, “Bastard cat”.
I’d love to be able to tell you that, after my traumatic experience, Catorze cuddled his mamma. However, he didn’t. He just screamed at me for a second helping of food (and this time I gave him a tear-open pouch, not a can), ate it and went outside.
Meanwhile, I am sitting here, my cut-thumb pain worse than my surgery pain by quite some way, wondering if I should just get rid of Catorze and share my house with an animal who is less trouble. A venomous snake, maybe. Or a mountain lion.
Just in from the rain, with both fang and weird reptilian tail on show.
It’s almost a year since The Great Salmon Grab, and I’m still being screamed at every time I prepare fish.
Cat Daddy: “You know why it’s happening. You left salmon out for him.”
That’s not what happened, but ok.
Cats can, apparently, lose their sense of smell as they grow older. Since Louis Catorze is such a bully for stinky fish, yet only moderately responsive to his almost-odourless Orijen, I wondered, perhaps, if this was happening to him, too.
After looking online, I discovered that the symptoms of this are as follows:
Sneezing (nope)
Nasal congestion (nope)
Changes in behaviour (nope – unless they count “Being even more of an annoying shite” among these)
Increased respiratory sounds (he’s certainly making more SOUNDS, but they’re definitely not respiratory)
Ok, so maybe there’s nothing wrong with his sense of smell.
Catorze has always favoured fish-flavoured dry food, so much so that it was even mentioned on his documentation when he came to us from the rescue. He has had a couple of forays into the domain of wet food but, although he’s enjoyed them, they have never lasted very long. My next theory, after the sense of smell one, was that, perhaps, his tastes were changing in his old age, and that his fish-bullying was a sign that he needed wet food in his life again. And our lovely friends at The Cool Cat Club were happy to oblige.
When the delivery arrived, as soon as I opened the first tray of cod and salmon pâté, the screaming started. And it wasn’t just normal Catorzian screaming: it was guttural and desperate. He wolfed down the whole tray, plus a scattering of Orijen, and I think he would have happily eaten more had I offered it.
The next morning, the same thing happened. His plate was so clean afterwards that I could have eaten from it (but I didn’t).
It’s only been a few days, but already he’s lost that gaunt, elderly cat look. I can FEEL that he’s chubbing up. Most cat people probably wouldn’t want their cats to gain weight but, trust me, Catorze needed it.
The possibility of him producing a half-decent Official Winter Solstice Portrait, as opposed to looking like something just dug up from an ancient tomb, is growing more likely.
Ok, so this one is more Ancient Tomb than Yuletide Cheer.
What triggers Louis Catorze more than a room with Michelin-starred hot-smoked salmon in it? A room WITHOUT Michelin-starred hot-smoked salmon in it, it seems.
Now that our mealtimes have been irreparably ruined, we are forced to shut ourselves away if we want to eat fish. Catorze screams and batters at the door like an angry poltergeist, making us bolt our meal down at lightning speed. However, both this AND the indigestion that ensues are still better than trying to eat with him in the same room.
After we’ve finished, we let him in. A foolproof plan, non?
Well … non. A room that smells of hot-smoked salmon yet doesn’t appear to contain any – phantom salmon, if you will – is a zillion times more frustrating than seeing the salmon but not being allowed to have any.
Apologies for the state of the room. But I’ll live with everyone witnessing my slatternliness, just to be able to show the world what happens when Catorze enters a room that once had hot-salmon in it, but doesn’t anymore:
What are your favourite physical exercises or activities?
Unfortunately the only exercise that I’m permitted to do, whilst recovering from my operation, is walking, five times a day. I started with five minutes each time, and this week I’m on six.
Cat Daddy laughs at me for logging each five-to-six-minute walk on Strava, and says that the triathletes and desert marathon runners will think I’m ridiculous for logging such paltry efforts. Luckily I couldn’t give a shite what they think.
Louis Catorze however, has more than compensated for my inactivity by INCREASING his physical output. Yes, I know that it’s the opposite of what most normal cats are doing at this time of year. No, I don’t understand it.
Weirdo.
This is what he’s been up to since I’ve been back from hospital, and they seem to be his new favourite things to do:
Demanding to play with his pink butterfly on a string, every single morning.
Attacking the hot water bottle that my sister sent me as a get-well present (see below).
Kicking over my bucket of used blood-thinning injection needles as he pitter-pattered/parkoured around the bedroom at whatever time of night it was.
Actual footage of me when I woke up the next morning. (Picture from x.com.)
For an old boy of fourteen and a half, he’s doing all right. I’m being absolutely run ragged trying to keep up with him, but then it’s never been about me, has it?
I found the settling down at the end deeply offensive.
louiscatorze.com 