Louis Catorze LOVES going out in the rain. Nobody understands it, but he does.
After a few utterly unbearable days of heat, it has finally started to rain. The vast majority of Catorze’s kills take place during storms, so we await the next few days with some trepidation. But that’s our problem and not his.
If anyone wants the little sod they can find him here, plotting the next round of bloodshed:
Cat Daddy, after an especially alarming clap of thunder: “He’ll probably be terrified and run indoors now.” Nope.
Since The Great Salmon Grab, Cat Daddy and I have been very nervous about buying hot-smoked salmon again. We took some on holiday to Scotland, and bought more whilst up there, but we haven’t really had the experience of attempting to eat it at home with a demented cat trying to wrestle us for it.
A couple of nights ago, I decided that it was the night. My plan was to wait until Louis Catorze was out before preparing the salmon. It was a warm evening, so he would probably spend most of it in the garden on Rodent Duty outside, non?
Well … NON.
The little sod just wouldn’t go out. He just loitered suspiciously around the living room, probably imagining that I couldn’t see him but I knew his game.
Within the yellow circle, if you zoom in, you can just see the tip of a Catorzian ear.
Sadly, he also knew MY game, and he wasn’t moving. At least, not before suddenly retching and producing the most enormous triple-puke I have ever seen. I swear that the whole lot combined would have weighed more than him. After cleaning up the unholy mess, suddenly I wasn’t really in the mood for food. And, having ruined my dinner plans by making me too repulsed to eat, Catorze’s work was done so he finally went out.
I then realised that this could be my only chance to eat the hot-smoked salmon undisturbed. So, despite not really being hungry, I prepared a cauliflower rice risotto with lemon, dill and black pepper, then placed the salmon fillet on top, and settled back down in the living room to enjoy it.
As soon as I sat down, Catorze was back. In fact, he was so quick that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had pretended to go outside, just to trick me. And, for the next fifteen minutes, I was subjected to a torrent of clambering, headbutting and, of course, the most God-awful screaming. I don’t have evidence of it, because I wasn’t able to eat AND fight off a homicidal cat AND film the proceedings with just two hands. But, believe me, it was bad.
And that, Mesdames et Messieurs, is the tragic tale of how we can never eat hot-smoked salmon at home again. What has happened to our sweet little cat who had no interest in our food? And how go we get rid of this evil changeling that’s somehow been swapped with him?
How would you describe yourself to someone who couldn’t see you?
Louis Catorze wouldn’t need to. Anyone who couldn’t see him would certainly hear him and, after that, they probably wouldn’t want any further information.
Sometimes you just need to sit in the Japanese anemones and scream your guts out. (This photo was Le Roi’s Official Autumn Equinox Portrait 2018.)
Last week we bumped into our chat-sitteur in the pub, and we chatted about our holiday and her time trapped living in Le Château with Catorze.
She told us how much she enjoyed spending time with such a loving cat, which was quite a novelty to her since she lives with more reserved cats; Scully is more into sleeping, and her usurper stepsister Zelda prefers to direct her attention to catching birds. However, at times Catorze was also rather demanding and rude, trying to knock her phone out of her hand if she wasn’t quick enough in delivering the cuddles.
There were also the now-customary disrupted Zoom meetings, which started with the also-now-customary screaming. This was initially off-camera, then the chat-sitteur’s colleagues would say, “Ah, are you looking after that cat again?” and finally he would appear in a “Ta-dahhh!” kind of way, entering stage/screen left and bidding everyone a friendly bonjour.
The chat-sitteur’s boyfriend commented that he had “never met a cat so affectionate or so loud”. We get it, mon gars. Really, we do.
A few days before our pub meet-up, there was some discussion on my online cat group about cat voices, especially those of Chats Noirs. Catorze, it seems, is quite distinctive in his volume. Others described or posted evidence of their Dark Overlords’ beautiful, melodic little trills and, interestingly, Catorze was on my lap as I listened to his comrades but didn’t so much as flick an ear. That said, certain cats’ voices HAVE been known to make him really sit up and take notice, however deep his slumber. One of them is his own.
Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: HIS OWN VOICE SHOCKS HIM WHEN IT IS PLAYED BACK TO HIM. Is he genuinely wondering what child of the night is making such sweet music … or, like the rest of us, is he embarrassed upon hearing himself on audio/video?
Here is a medley of the best/worst (depending on your point of view) Catorzian screams. You may wish to turn the volume down:
Greeting me when I returned home from work, having previously escaped out at The Front.
Another escape out at The Front, then changing his mind and wanting back in.
I honestly have no idea what was happening in Boys’ Club here.
Typical of what? If we mean typical of what would happen to most people most of the time, I hope not. But typical of the usual shite that happens here? Most likely, yes.
Louis Catorze has just dipped his tail into my tea. This has happened before but, on this occasion, he kept it in the cup and swished it around a couple of times. And, when he lifted it back out, he slapped it first onto the sofa and then onto my clothes.
Now, for most normal cats – if you are among the scarce few people on earth who own one of those – a slapping tail is bad news. Every cat book and website warns us that it’s a “Don’t make me angry” warning. But, for Catorze, it’s a sign of contentment. I know how idiotic this sounds, and if you’re a cat behaviourist you will probably be rolling your eyes at how I can possibly be this stupid. But trust me: slappy is happy when it comes to the Catorzian tail.
Anyway, now I need to get another mug. Except I’m TUC so I can’t. Yet I don’t want to go without tea, either, so I’m giving serious thought to reaching for the teapot in front of me and drinking straight from the spout.
What would you do?
Are you:
1. Team Go Tealess Until The Cat Moves?
2. Team Dislodge The Cat And Fetch Another Mug?
3. Team Drink Straight From The Teapot?
4. (Saint Jésus, PLEASE no) Team Drink From The Taily Mug?
On Friday night, Cat Daddy and I watched the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. If you missed it, just chug a couple of shots of overproof vodka and watch back-to-back episodes of Dr Who (from the 1970s, not recent ones) on YouTube, and you’ll have a similar experience. And, if you fancy a giggle, check out the Brits on social media, moaning about the speakers addressing everyone in French. Yes, speaking French, the official language of the games, in Paris. Imagine that!
Louis Catorze was conspicuously absent throughout and, although it was disappointing that he didn’t want to sit with us and witness this historic event in his fatherland, we didn’t think much of it. He has been known to go missing for hours and be absolutely fine – and, no, we still don’t know exactly where he goes. It’s probably better that way.
Then Family Next Door informed us that he was at their place.
Me: “The hell is he doing there?”
Mamma Next Door: “Watching the Olympics.”
Right.
I was so shocked that my brain didn’t even think to say, “It must be some other black cat”. Not that there would have been much point, as Family Next Door know Catorze like they know their own names.
Plus there was no denying this pose in this photo:
Yes, the black markup pen was required here.Daddy Next Door very kindly provided his own edited version.
That said, I don’t know why I was shocked, as Catorze is known for wandering into other people’s houses. That Neighbour once found him upstairs on the landing, screaming himself senseless. And our previous neighbour thought she had mice but, when she looked under her bed to find the source of the mysterious scrabbling, it was Catorze.
There have also been various reports of his failed attempts to break into people’s houses. In one case he was battering at the door in a quite insistent manner, undeterred by the dog on the other side.
I wonder whether Catorze strutted home on Friday night, thinking, “Ha – these jobards don’t know where I’ve been”? Regretfully, unless we actually confront him next door – and, if you’ve ever bumped into your cats unexpectedly outside of your home, you will know how hilarious their faces are when they see you – the little sod will never know that we’re onto him.
If Catorze were a dog, people would be really cross with us for not training him properly. It’s a good thing he’s a cat, because everyone seems to understand that cats do whatever the heck they want. Even if it’s not what we want.
I have decided to call this little photo-story “What the hell is happening here?”
Preparation.Approach.Launch.Flight.Regret?
Although he did it in our previous house, Louis Catorze has never used the bathroom window here as an entrance or exit route – well, not to our knowledge. But, last night, for whatever reason, he did. Nobody knows why.
Once through, he arsed around outside for a while, making creepy shadows like a chupacabra, so I thought I’d leave him to it and go to bed.
This looks like no cat I have ever seen.
Then the screaming started.
For a while I ignored it, thinking he had jumped down to ground level, come in through the cat flap and started annoying Cat Daddy. Catorze’s screams are loud enough that they can be heard from another floor in the house. However, that wasn’t what had happened. The stupid little shite was still outside the bathroom window, and appeared to be stuck.
Where do I even START in unpicking how a cat who jumped out, can’t or won’t jump back in?
Eventually I couldn’t handle the screaming anymore, so I let Catorze back in and went back to bed. And, immediately, I regretted my decision, because I have now taught him that he has a new place through which, if he screams loudly enough and for long enough, some chump will let him back in.
So now it’s not a question of IF, but of WHEN Catorze will do this again. Will it be tomorrow night, and every night thereafter for the rest of his life? Or will he let me think he’s forgotten about it, then launch a surprise attack the night before I need to do something very important?
Remember Louis Catorze’s less-than-enthusiastic welcome home? Well, all that changed when I made crab pasta. As soon as he smelled it, THEN he wanted to be my friend and had plenty to say about it.
Here is a tiny snippet of what we were forced to endure:
Please, make it stop.
If you listen carefully, you can hear Cat Daddy saying, “It has a sauna as well”. Yes, he’s just out of camera shot, researching holiday lets for next summer. YES, ALREADY. Such is his haste to guarantee us at least a couple of peaceful weeks in 2025.
And here is Catorze, having filled his boots when I took my eye off my bowl for 0.27 seconds:
Luckily it was empty, but he’s still a bastard cat. And his gross licking meant I couldn’t have seconds in the same bowl.
Normality has well and truly resumed. Although what’s normal about any of this will forever remain one of life’s great mysteries.
We are home, and feeling quite smug that we missed the heatwave. (And, by “heatwave”, I mean that it was 30°C for one (1) day. We’re British. Being a bit pathetic in the summer is what we do.)
Louis Catorze greeted me with a dismissive scowl, then walked towards me and flopped down just out of my reach. It was as if the idea of welcoming me home had crossed his mind fleetingly, but then he thought better of it.
“Nah, sod it; SHE can come to MOI”. And of course I did.
With Cat Daddy, however, it was a different matter. Lap time and Boys’ Club roughhousery resumed within minutes:
It’s as if we never went away.
Whenever I see black cat things whilst out and about, I have to take pictures of them. On the way back from Scotland, Cat Daddy and I stayed in the Black Bull pub in Sedburgh, who serve a very imaginative Japanese-inspired tasting menu. Japanese people LOVE their cats, and on the wall was this delightful picture:
The text, apparently, means “Blue tomcat”.
Try as I might, I wasn’t able to take a decent shot without the reflections in the glass, hence the wonky angle. And the mysterious turquoise orb managed to find me, too.
Then Cat Daddy tried, and achieved the shot below. I think his effort sums up Louis Catorze far better than mine; not only is the cat toying with a glowing ball between his front paws, but look at the glow emanating from the other end:
Le Roi Soleil?
The sun is shining out of his arse, which aligns exactly with Catorze’s view of himself.
We are so happy to be back home with the little sod. Thank you so much to our chat-sitteur for looking after him.
I really miss cats. We haven’t been short of wildlife during our stay here, but the best part of my whole day is sitting on the sofa, drinking green tea with Louis Catorze on my lap. So it’s been very strange not being able to do that.
We have been lucky enough to spend time with a sweet black Labrador called Sula. I’m not usually quite so keen on dogs but Sula was very well-behaved, friendly but without jumping or slobbering. And, since part of her home is a sculpture showroom, full of intricate, fragile works of art, jumping and slobbering wouldn’t be desirable characteristics at all. (Sula’s Dog Mamma is artist Lotte Glob: look here for more information about her magical work.)
Sula was given a biscuit treat after this, as a reward for posing beautifully.
Whenever I meet black animals, I always look for features that make them stand out from the rest of their … breed? kin? peers?, mainly to silence the “All Black Animals Look The Same” brigade (of which Cat Daddy is an active member). Sula has a distinctive broad stripe of fur down her back which lies in a completely different direction from the rest of her fur. It’s still black but a DIFFERENT black, if that makes any sense.
Fifty shades of black.
I asked whether Sula had any Rhodesian Ridgeback in her ancestry, surprising myself with my dog knowledge, which doesn’t usually extend far beyond “big ones”, “small ones”, “Police dogs” and “Andrex puppies”. She doesn’t. The spinal stripe is just a charming little quirk which makes her unique.
We black cat owners always know our own cats, even from a distance. Catorze’s brother, Luther, had just one unique feature – a comically thin tail, like a pencil – but, even without this, I would still have known. I remember walking home from the shops one Sunday morning, and hearing that awful, guttural cat fight sound ringing through the street. Then, when I rounded a corner, I saw a ginger cat and a black cat firmly clamped together, screaming bloody murder and rolling over and over as one unit, in the middle of the road. (Not the pavement. THE ACTUAL ROAD, the bit where cars drive.)
For a fleeting second I thought, “How embarrassing for those owners to have their cats make a spectacle of themselves so publicly, on a quiet Sunday morning.”
Then I looked more closely at the black cat and glimpsed a flash of a pencil-thin tail. Oh dear. (Although I knew anyway, even before seeing the tail.)
Luther, with the telltale tail.
Catorze has a number of noteworthy features which I was going to list here, but I ought to keep a bit of my powder dry in case he causes trouble and I’m forced to haul out the old “It must have been some other black cat” argument. And the good thing is that, in our neighbourhood, there is at least one other black cat whom we could blame consider in the event of any Chat Noir misbehaviour. (Sorry if it ends up being yours.)
Would you recognise your pet from a distance or among a crowd of other similar animals? And, if so, how?
Vampire teeth? A voice that could strip paint? Erm … no, definitely not ours.
Cat Daddy and I are still having a magnificent time in this beautiful place, but I miss cats. And, yes, we have mooted the idea of bringing Louis Catorze with us the next time.
One short walk for us. One giant litter tray for Catorze.
Me: “But what about the journey up here? All that screaming?”
Cat Daddy: “Maybe we could send him separately by DHL? They do a next-day service, don’t they?”
Actually, the vision of the DHL courier beating us up here, and then having to entertain Catorze in our holiday let whilst waiting for us, is quite funny.
We haven’t seen any cats during our whole time here, apart from a pair of kittens that we glimpsed through a window in a nearby craft village. I wanted to invite myself in and cuddle them, but then I thought that might be weird. That said, in the event of some random stranger knocking at our door and making the same request for Catorze, I would say yes and invite them to stay for dinner.
In the absence of a cat, Cat Daddy appears to have adopted a pair of seagulls as his temporary holiday pets. He looks out for them every evening and even leaves out fish scraps for them.
Me: “What are they called?”
Him: “They’re black-backed gulls.”
Me: “No, what are their actual names?”
Him, without hesitation: “Bert and Freda.” (He pronounced Freda “fray-da”, rhyming with “trader”, which is unusual but I assume this is the Scottish pronunciation.)
It’s interesting to note that, at home, Cat Daddy can’t abide large birds and only approves of small ones using our bird feeder. Maybe the holiday endorphins have made him a bit less grumpy, even if it’s just for a short while.
This is Bert. Freda is more camera-shy.
Catorze is still having a great time without us and, apart from his customary Zoom call disturbances and, erm, an incident with an undead mouse, he has largely been behaving himself. I have really missed him and I’m looking forward to seeing him when we return home this weekend. Only three more days until I get to scoop him up and give him a big squeeze (whilst he squirms to get away from me).
Look at him, lounging around on the chat-sitteur’s bed like he’s King of the World:
Someone has advertised their professional cleaning services on our local neighbourhood forum, including before and after shots of what they’ve been able to achieve.
I stopped scrolling after a few because some of the “before” shots were truly stomach-churning. One of the less awful ones showed a carpet covered in mud, with a cat sitting beside it. And the person posting has used the iPhone markup tool to obscure the identity of the cat:
They’re gonna need a thicker marker pen.
I have questions:
⁃ Is it the same deal with cats as with kids, i.e. bad form to post their photos online without the parents’ (humans’) permission?
⁃ Did the cat make the mess? If my cat had done this to my house, I’d be naming and shaming the little weasel for all to see.
⁃ In the unlikely event that the cat didn’t make the mess, why photograph him next to it? That seems an odd thing to do.
Unfortunately the original poster’s markup tool skills are not up to much because, although they’ve obscured the cat SOMEWHAT, they’ve left enough of him visible to tell us all that he’s a ginge with white paws. So now I’m going to be scouring the neighbourhood on the lookout for this carpet-muddying miscreant, and eyeing every ginger and white cat with suspicion.
And, yes, I am relieved that it’s not a black cat, which would have made people wonder whether this were my house. Most who know me would know that this wasn’t, but the idea of Louis Catorze making a hideous mess in someone else’s house is not utterly ridiculous.
Here is Catorze, relaxing in the knowledge that, for once, nobody thinks it’s him. Mind you, he’d be adopting this very same pose even if they did:
If you could host a dinner and anyone you invited were sure to come, who would you invite?
Louis Catorze doesn’t really have any friends, so his dinner party would be a quiet affair consisting of just him and Cat Daddy. I don’t suppose even I would be invited, although I would probably be expected to do the catering.
Catorze’s cat-cousin Otis, however, would invite next door’s chickens. After all, they were kind enough to host him the other night, not just for dinner but for an overnight stay, so the correct protocol would be to return the gesture, non?
Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: Otis has just returned home from an impromptu mini-break in next door’s chicken coop. Astonishingly, the chickens were unharmed; the neighbours have done a head-count and confirmed that they are all present and correct.
Otis was also fine, although unusually tired. We don’t know what went on during those eighteen (!) lost hours, nor will we ever find out – after all, what happens in the coop stays in the coop. But the AI Bot has a few ideas.
We would bet Le Château on number three:
Maybe, but doesn’t explain the tiredness.Not beyond the realms of possibility.We have a winner.
Louis Catorze is having a ball in our absence, just as we thought he would. We are moderately offended at how disloyal he is, but at least we know we won’t be subjected to a post-holiday sulk upon our return.
He has been spending a lot of time out in the rain. Our chat-sitteur was rather concerned about this; thinking he might be stuck outside (either a cat flap malfunction, or just being thick and forgetting how to come in), she even brought him indoors a couple of times, only to have him scream at her and run back out again. So I told her that he loves the rain, and that she should just leave him to it.
Perhaps I should have mentioned all Catorze’s odd foibles in the House Document. However, not only would it have taken a long time to list all 28,074 of them, but nobody would believe us. “He loves sitting out in thunderstorms and getting drenched, then coming in, rolling the water off onto things/people and then going back out again to restart the process” just sounds idiotic (yet still isn’t the weirdest thing about him).
The chat-sitteur told us that there had been “no mice yet – I guess because of the rain?”. Ahem. I couldn’t quite bring myself to mention this, so I just stayed quiet.
She also reported that the little sod was “exceedingly cuddly”. Aww.
Never stop being such a little freak, Catorze. (Except for the nocturnal parkour and singalong sessions. Maybe stop those.)
Cat Daddy and I are in our favourite place in the Scottish Highlands and, although we have barely started this holiday, we have already started thinking about the next one. I wonder how receptive he would be to a trip to Minneapolis around late June next year, to witness this absolute cracker of an event?
This spectacle was one person’s simple idea: a man named John Edwards once took photos of local cats and posted them on social media, then decided that, if the area could have tours of historic buildings and suchlike, why not a cat tour? I like his thinking; historic buildings are great, but cats are better.
Perhaps this is what our neighbourhood needs, too? We certainly have enough cats, and here are just a few of them:
Obviously these are not the only cats in TW8. However, just like the Minneapolis event, as well as the cats on the official tour route, “bonus cats” would be encouraged to take part. So, when other local cat freaks hear about the event, they would be able to display their furry overlords at the appropriate time, too.
To obtain approval I would have to run the idea past That Neighbour, who is the PR and events guru around here. However, given the number of times Catorze has broken into his house, disturbed his peace, pissed off his dog and whatever else, I can’t see him agreeing to it.
So, for now, the Cat Tour of TW8 will remain just a dream. That said, I am mentally designing the e-ticket, and the QR code will look something like this:
louiscatorze.com 