Hallowe’en came and went, and Louis Catorze delivered us the biggest scare imaginable: he behaved. I know. Take all the time you need to absorb that information.
Our first trick-or-treaters came knocking not long after 5pm. Many of them commented on our “Beware of the black cat” pumpkin, at which point Cat Daddy would approach the doorway and unveil Catorze, holding him aloft. The kids were absolutely delighted to learn that there was a real black cat, all chorusing “Awww!” whilst their parents took photos. And Catorze just hung there in mid-air, letting it all happen.
Not once did he show any interest in trying to escape out at The Front. His only act of naughtiness was to come in from The Back, soaking wet and muddy, and tread gross paw prints all over Cat Daddy’s white shirt. Other than that he was impeccably behaved.
Could it be that his years have finally caught up with him, and that he simply doesn’t have the energy to be naughty anymore? Or is it a sign of the End of Days?
The wait is over and the big night is here. No, not Botanical Week on the Great British Bake-Off (although I am curious, since nobody understands what it means). I mean Hallowe’en, of course.
We warned them. We have done our civic duty.
We are a little nervous as we don’t know how we will contain Louis Catorze, given that we will be opening the portal to The Front multiple times tonight. But, just like everyone before us who has ever had to deal with vampires, we have until sundown to come up with a solution.
The good news is that we actually managed to achieve a few passable contenders for the 2023 Official Hallowe’en Portrait. However, none of them quite match with my creative vision. I wanted a regal, velvety panther with a glint in his eye that said, “I am the elder statesman of vampire Chats Noirs”, rather like this:
What he sees in the mirror. (Picture from Bing AI bot.)
Instead, I ended up with this fetching collection:
What we see every day.What we see on a full moon.
I know. We don’t know what to say, either.
They did improve somewhat. But then the bar was pretty low.
Prowling panther.Glossy panther.
But, given the choice between a prize-winning Official Hallowe’en Portrait and a happy, healthy, lively Catorze, we would always pick the latter. We never thought he would be in such good form in October (when his skin problems usually resurface) and at the ripe old age of thirteen and, yet, here we are. He’s lively, noisy and alert, he’s chubbing up, and his fur is the softest it’s ever been. Either we are tremendously fortunate, or the Dark Lord is regenerating and will be at maximum strength in time for the apocalypse.
Joyeuse Hallowe’en à vous tous, and merci to the cats below for their Hallowe’en contributions:
The adorable Chutney, whose Chat Noir buddy poses better than Catorze.Chutney again, in his pumpkin costume.Cocoa the babysit cat and his sister, Chanel.Chanel again, showing the pumpkin who’s boss.Good boy, Neville.Ollivander does the right thing, but still looks aghast at the indignity of it all.Jasper takes a brief break from ouija boards.Dobby, erm …?Pipistrello aka Pipi the Bat Cat.Pipi again, powering up to drain the hapless hand of blood.
Never mind me: what are CATS working on? What the heck are they all up to? Mark my words: something is afoot.
Caught communing with The Count.
At the weekend, Cat Daddy and I went to Brompton Cemetery, where they host a series of spooky events throughout the month of October. Our talk on necromancy took place in the chapel and, not long after the presenter had started speaking, he was interrupted by an unearthly wailing.
We thought we had finally solved the age-old debate regarding whether we could communicate with the spirit world. However, it was actually this cheeky sod (below), who had followed everyone in from outside and then caused utter mayhem when he couldn’t get out again:
A magnificent cat. Also a total piss-taker.
Meanwhile in TW8, Louis Catorze is prowling suspiciously and swishing his tail in the kitchen. Someone or something is in here and, whether it’s a mouse (likely) or a demonic entity (equally likely), I know that Catorze was the one responsible for bringing it in. The little sod is also relentlessly bullying me to let him out at The Front, and pushing coasters and pens off the table, one by one, if I refuse. He only ever does this when I’m home alone with him and is much better-behaved with Cat Daddy; this is partly because he knows that his papa will relent and let him out at The Front, but also because he knows it will make me look melodramatic and unhinged when I tell people about his behaviour.
Has something happened to make all the cats in the world start acting like massive shites? And how badly will it escalate in the next few days? Suddenly I feel the need to burn lots of sage and sit in a circle of salt until Hallowe’en is over …
“What do you wish me to do next, O Dark Master?” (I didn’t quite catch Catorze’s reply.)
I am at my sister’s house for our traditional Halloweekend celebration of baking, crafting and horror films, whilst Cat Daddy has a lads’ weekend at Le Château with Louis Catorze.
My sister has just discovered bats living in her maple tree and my nieces, aged seven and five, went absolutely … well … batshit upon seeing them. They were obsessed anyway following a twilight bat walk in a park in TW8 last year and bat-spotting in our garden during August’s Blue Moon, so to find them living in their own garden was just like unearthing buried treasure.
We are now researching how to make a bat-friendly garden, and one of the tips given is, “Keep cats indoors”. Ahem. That said, I would be prepared to bet Le Château and all its contents on Catorze never catching a bat as long as he lives (and probably not making that much effort to try).
Speaking of bats, after writing about Pipi the Bat Cat a few weeks ago, I received a number of requests for photos of him. His human brother was more than happy to oblige; just like me, he has about 8,983 photos of his cat on his phone and perhaps five of his human family members. And, if he runs out of space on his phone, no doubt he will delete the humans first.
My favourite picture of them all is the last one, in which Pipi demonstrates his, erm, love for his dog-brother, Fulmine. Since he’s clearly an expert at that classic Hallowe’en cat pose with the arched back and the upright tail, I think Pipi needs an Official Hallowe’en Portrait, non?
In fact, should it become our collective mission to ensure that every Chat Noir sits for an Official Hallowe’en Portrait?
Gli amici.Il mondo dei gioCATtoli.La vita è bella.Colpito da un Fulmine.
So … cats and séances. You probably won’t like the idea of your sweet little kitty communing with evil spirits, but they’re all at it. It’s not just the black vampire cats, although blackness and vampirism do somewhat increase the chances of evil doings. (Don’t ask me how I know this.)
If cats are in a group, the pack mentality takes over and they all whip each other up into a spooky frenzy, as my friend Dawn’s cats did (below). Dobby, the large ginge, was clearly the one who hatched the plan, with Ollivander, the tabby with the white toes, happily following suit and Neville, the pinstripe tuxedo, being somewhat reticent yet not exactly going out of his way to avoid trouble, either. Sorry, Nev, but, unless you are actively anti-demon, you are still complicit.
Nothing to see here.
At the moment that this photo was taken, they had just been caught out and Dobby was gasping, “Oh shit, it’s Mum!” But it was too late for Dawn; as we can see, they had already succeeded in summoning the Antichrist, aka Jasper, the black kitten rising from their witch board. And, once the Antichrist has been summoned, it’s impossible to get rid of him. (Don’t ask me how I know this, either.)
If you only have one cat, regretfully you are still not in a spook-free zone; it seems it’s perfectly possible to form a coven of just one. I caught Catorze mid-ouija earlier this year, a couple of nights before a full moon. If he can do this in February at a time when he was supposed to be convalescing and taking it easy after his dental surgery, I dread to think what he does on long October nights when he’s at peak psycho.
Nothing to see here, either. Move along, s’il vous plaît.
As we count down towards the spookiest night of the year, you don’t want to mess with cats, whatever their colour. It’s like trying to take on the Mafia; life is easier if you just pretend you didn’t see anything.
Ollivander fun fact: he’s from Puerto Rico so his first language is Spanish. He is also fluent in ignoring English. Neville fun fact: he was found as a stray when his now-mamma was searching for Ollivander, who’d gone missing. No doubt the little sods planned it.Dobby fun fact: he is the meatiest and cuddliest of the bunch.Jasper fun fact 1: he was being offered free of charge, at a market, just before Hallowe’en. Luckily his now-mamma took him and ensured that he would be safe.Jasper fun fact 2 (yes, he gets two as he’s the Chat Noir): he has lots to say … whether or not you want to hear it. The boys are still dabbling in the occult and, as you can see, they are summoning larger demons these days.
I have recently joined a Smart phone photography social media group. People post their original shots versus the edited versions, and everyone compares the two and tells them whether they’ve gone a bit overboard or got the balance right.
People mainly post landscapes and human portraits in the group, but recently there have been more and more cats. There was even one cat pictured DURING A VET VISIT, who sat perfectly still and whose photo was blade-sharp and blur-free.
I am always impressed by people’s editing skills, but I’m more amazed that they can get their little sods to sit still. I can’t.
Every so often I post saying, “This is what I managed with Louis Catorze”, accompanied by a picture of an indistinct black haze or a glimpse of his arse end walking away. This makes me the funniest person in the group but also by far the worst photographer
The fact that my Catorzian photography hasn’t improved in nine years, and the fact that not even a Smart phone photography group can help me, don’t bode well considering that it’s October and I still haven’t managed an Official Hallowe’en Portrait.
I have the perfect props: some giant home-grown pumpkins gifted by Cat Daddy’s friend Mike. And I have the perfect subject matter: a black cat with vampire teeth. But it’s not working. Each picture is more shit than the last, because the subject matter either doesn’t want to play or just wants to annoy me (or possibly a bit of each).
My only hope is that, since Catorze behaves for other people, one of his many October visitors will manage to take a good picture. But at least his weird bald patch is disappearing back to whichever strange dimension from which it came. So that’s something. (I’m reaching for any positive that I can find, to be honest.)
Me: “Will we EVER get a decent Official Hallowe’en Portrait from him?”
Cat Daddy, without looking up from his phone: “When the sun freezes over, maybe?”
What is your favourite special occasion? Why is it your favourite?
Since we share a house with a black cat with vampire teeth, it’s practically compulsory to love Hallowe’en. And Hallowe’en isn’t a day: it’s a season. And that season started on 1st October (with pre-season having taken place throughout the whole of September).
We have always known that Louis Catorze isn’t just a normal cat, and we change our minds every day about whether he could be an alien, a demon, a cryptozoological freak of nature yet to be discovered by science, or a combination of all three. But I now wonder if he might be a Cat Sìth.
No, I haven’t misspelled one of Cat Daddy’s Unrepeatable Expletives; a Sìth – pronounced “shee” – is a generic term used to describe a fairy creature of Celtic myth and legend. And a Cat Sìth is believed to appear in the form of (obviously) a cat. Guess what colour? Go on, I bet you’ll never guess.
The idea of Catorze being of fairy origin makes absolute sense. Although he has a feline silhouette, his vampire fangs and his exaggerated manga eyes make him look like something from a fantasy illustrator’s sketch book (the rough, tea-stained drafts that were discarded, obviously, not the polished final design). Other animals seem to be aware of this, because creatures who would, ordinarily, finish him in a fight – foxes, larger cats and the like – run away from him. He chases and eats spiders and flies, yet knows to leave bees alone. Does he recognise them as his allies?
Catorze is highly sensitive to the phases of the moon, putting extra vigour into his nocturnal parkour in the run-up to a full moon. I have a moon phases app which I barely check these days, because I can tell by his behaviour if a bad moon is rising. He can teleport silently – usually to places we don’t want him to go – yet also stomp forcefully across our floorboards when the mood takes him, sounding like an adult human. This is especially unnerving when it’s the middle of the night and I’m home alone. (Yes, we do warn our chat-sitteurs about this.)
If you’d like to read more about the Cat Sìth, have a look here. But this photo alone should be enough to convince you that our little sod is not of this world:
The Samhain demons have delivered me a belated gift: Covid! Yes, again!
As was the case the first time I had Covid, there were signs that this wasn’t just normal winter unwellness: Louis Catorze was all over me for the few days prior to my eventual positive test. Not only did he approach me of his own accord for cuddles, but he clung onto me with his claws, wailing pathetically, when I tried to displace him. However, as a result of the utterly dreadful symptoms, I have been off sick from work, which is entirely the opposite of what the little sod wants. Since the virus led to me spending more time at home, he’s back to his “normal” self.
Catorze doesn’t like sick people, especially when they sneeze. By this I don’t mean he is scared of sneezes but, rather, in disbelief that anyone would dare to assault his eardrums with such an offensive sound. On a couple of occasions he has tentatively settled onto my lap, only to depart when the sneeze came. And, as he left, he threw me a glowering stare and what could only be described as a wicked-witch scowl.
I have since seen him leave his papa’s lap in exactly the same way when Cat Daddy sneezed.* And this time he came to me.
*Oh yes: Cat Daddy is now experiencing symptoms, too. We have had to cancel a multitude of events – for most of which we had spent money on tickets – as a result. This is not great.
Cat Daddy hasn’t tested positive yet, but it’s only a matter of time. During the torturous wait for his telltale purple lines we are playing a kind of twisted game of tennis, with one of us sneezing, propelling scowly Catorze to the other person’s lap, only for them to sneeze and return him.
It can’t be any coincidence that the tennis term “deuce” is used to refer to both the devil, and to, erm, merde. Catorze is both. He knows it. And he doesn’t care.
Louis Catorze had an absolute cracker of a night on the 31st. Because we had quite the storm raging, he spent much of his time outside on ICB. But he did pop in occasionally to sit at the top of the stairs and creepy-stare at the trick or treaters. And, when they saw him, they decided that they would rather take their chances with the storm, and left quite hurriedly.
Hallowe’en may be over, but my love affair with creepy things on Discovery Plus is continuing.
One evening I couldn’t decide whether to watch murder or hauntings with Catorze, so we went for a combination of the two: Amityville Horror House. In short, it’s about a man who murders his family and then declares that ghosts in the house made him do it. The next family who move into the house then experience all manner of paranormal phenomena, although they rather asked for trouble by keeping all the murdered family’s furniture INCLUDING THE BEDS IN WHICH THEY WERE SHOT DEAD (!).
I quote the narrator of the documentary, word for word: “According to western Christian tradition, Devil’s Hour, 3am to 4am, is the time when demons and ghosts are at their most active. Paranormal investigators theorise that the veil between the spirit world and the physical plane is pierced during Devil’s Hour.”
It’s not just ghosts who are at their most active.
I knew that there had to be a reason why our mutual friend chose 3am to bounce around on the bed, whine, thunder around the house and, erm, pop bubble wrap. (Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: when we first moved into Le Château this actually happened.)
Since I took the decision to actively tackle my insomnia problem, I have stopped checking the time when I wake up in the middle of the night because, apparently, it can train your body to continue waking up at this time. But, if it’s because of Louis Catorze, I don’t need to check the time. I JUST KNOW.
I also know from other cat households that I am by no means the only person who experiences 3am shenanigans. The little sods are all at it. Until now I had imagined The Mothership – the mysterious, invisible vessel that beams messages to them via their microchips – to be of extraterrestrial origin, but now I know that it’s straight from hell. Satan’s control tower, if you will.
Chilling out to some goth rock.
Anyway, Catorze isn’t done with being creepy. So please think of us when you’re dismantling your Hallowe’en displays; your spookiness is over for another year, but we live with ours permanently.
Louis Catorze’s party month is always busy, but this October has been rammed full of things to do and people to see. Four of those people were Family Next Door, who still have Catorze’s picture hovering creepily on their knife block and haven’t (yet) reported strange noises at night and objects being moved.
Quieter than the real thing.
Daughter Next Door proudly showed me a magic 8 ball that she had received for her birthday, and urged me to ask it any question requiring a yes/no answer. So I said, “Is Louis the creepiest cat in the world?” And the ball malfunctioned. MALFUNCTIONED.
The message was just random white streaks on a background of darkness.
Daughter Next Door: “Oh. I’ve never seen it do this before.”
Neither of us knew quite what to say, but I am now more certain than ever that I won’t be trying out my new divination pendulum on Catorze, despite the giver daring me to do so. That thing will end up spinning like a rogue planchette during a séance with Satan.
Because of everything that we’ve had going on, and because our pumpkins are too heavy to lift, AND because of Louis Catorze’s unbelievably annoying habit of refusing to pose for my photos, somehow I just haven’t made much progress with his Official Hallowe’en Portrait.
Naturellement, when friends take pictures of him, he morphs into Compliant Supermodel Cat. When my friend Emily visited for our annual October spookathon weekend, she was able to capture this:
When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam …
Although I love the classic cuteness of this photo, no way is he this sweet and obliging in real life. A picture may well paint a thousand words but, in this case, they’re all lies.
Then, with a few days to go until the big night, Cat Daddy managed to produce this:
Don’t ever invite a vampire into your house. It renders you powerless.
Ah yes. This is a far more accurate depiction. It’s like a deleted scene from Salem’s Lot which didn’t make the final cut on account of Stephen King finding it too scary, and it truly shows Catorze for the demonic hell-beast that he is.
So, Mesdames and Messieurs, take your pick. Are you like Emily, kidding yourself that Catorze is an adorable little Hallowe’en kitty (not that I can blame her, because he always behaves for her)? Or are you living in the real world?
Whilst I leave you mulling over that tricky decision, may I wish you all a Joyeuse Fête.
One day, Cat Daddy and I would like to go to New Orleans for Hallowe’en. The voodoo, the Frenchness and the stark differences between their lifestyle and ours make it a very intriguing place to visit.
Until we make it over there, one of my favourite things to watch is Cajun Justice on Amazon Prime. It’s reality series that follows a Louisiana police department, which is not my usual kind of thing, but what makes it appeal to me are the folklore and the intrinsic part that it plays in the Louisiana way of life.
Members of the community call the police for supernatural reasons such as creepy noises in the attic, as well as for regular things such as, erm, accidentally running over a wild hog and disputing ownership of the carcass. Does it belong to the person who ran it over, or to the person on whose property it landed after the collision? The gentlemen involved couldn’t agree, and they refused to share it, so, in the end, the police lady told them that neither of them could have it and that it belonged to the state.
One day, the police were called to a dispute between neighbours who had been at war for some time; one household was “Cajun” (of local origin) and the other was “Redneck” (not of local origin) and, apparently, the two aren’t compatible.
In this case, the Rednecks’ cat had wandered onto the Cajuns’ property and “disappeared”, the suggestion being that the Cajuns had done something nasty to it. The Cajun neighbour was denying all knowledge, and, of course, the only way to prove it either way would have been finding the cat, dead or alive.
Police officer: “There’s a cat right there. [Points] Is that not y’all cat?”
[Cat strolls casually across the grass without a care in the world]
[Silence, tumbleweed, crickets]
Redneck lady, looking mortified: “Erm … yeah.”
[Laughter from wrongly-accused Cajun, no apology given by gun-jumping Rednecks, zero shits given by cat regarding the trouble caused]
Louis Catorze would have an absolute ball if he were a Louisiana cat, so much so that I gave serious thought to taking him with us on our trip. This is what I think he would love about the place:
⁃ Searing heat
⁃ Abundant nutria (large, toothy rodents regarded as vermin)
⁃ He would be first in line to cause neighbourhood discord and waste police time (although he manages the former perfectly well here, and it’s only a matter of time before he also achieves the latter)
⁃ He would be worshipped by voodoo priests as some sort of holy deity
However, the disadvantages are rather concerning:
⁃ Alligators
⁃ Snakes
⁃ Everyone has guns
⁃ He could be mistaken for a nutria by an alligator, a snake or a person with a gun
Hmmm. Perhaps it’s just as well he doesn’t have to travel, and that the world comes to him. And that is exactly the way it should be for a Sun King.
Yesterday it was my birthday. I don’t usually have a birthday cake – the last one I had was ten years ago, and the one before that was probably as a child – but I wanted one this year. And, since I can’t bake, I decided to have one made for me.
You’d think this would be easy and that, in these difficult times, bakers would be more than happy for my business, non? Well … NON. One of the three local bakers whom I approached replied promptly and told me that she no longer made bespoke cakes (fair enough), another promised to contact me with costs but then didn’t despite me politely following up, and the third just didn’t reply at all. I messaged her on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, she read both messages (ah yes, the magic of modern technology and read receipts) but still didn’t reply.
Merci à Dieu, then, for Cat Daddy. He has never baked, nor has he decorated a cake, in his life. But, when he saw my predicament, he stepped in to be my dashing knight. And this magnificent masterpiece was the result of his efforts:
Saint Jésus et tous ses anges.
It may be 70% sugar and 30% food colouring, but it’s the best thing in the world. Bravo to Cat Daddy for stepping out of his comfort zone to save the day, and to my sister and nieces for making the fondant features. The cake tasted as good as it looked, and the only costs to us were the ingredients, the constant questions and Unrepeatable Expletives as Cat Daddy prepared it, and black tongues for several days.
Louis Catorze had plenty of attention over the weekend and is now recovering on his papa’s lap after all the over-stimulation. After all, he needs to conserve some mischief for the rest of the month.
Don’t overdo it! There’s still almost half of the party month left to go.Take it easy, little sod.
Cat Daddy’s friend Mike – one of the boys from the notorious Friday night Zoom call – has given us some home-grown pumpkins. Some are tiny ghost pumpkins that fit into the palm of my hand. The the others are the familiar, traditional orange ones, and so ridiculously heavy that I can’t lift them.
If I am to achieve the Herculean feat that is a faintly passable Official Hallowe’en Portrait for Louis Catorze, I am going to have to do one of the following:
⁃ Rely on him to come to wherever the big pumpkins may be, rather than carrying them to him when he happens to be in an appropriate place/pose.
⁃ Use the small ones (taking them to him), which will make the little sod look comically gigantic.
One of those is far more likely to yield results than the other. Although I use the word “results” somewhat loosely.
For the moment, the big pumpkins are sitting on the outdoor sofa until I figure out how on earth I can not only get Catorze to them, but make him pose beautifully. I’m going to need a little luck, and a LOT of time.
Like a hot stone massage, except … neither hot, nor a stone. Nor even a massage.Oh dear God, no.
After Louis Catorze’s success in modelling for the Christmas collection, Puppy Mamma decided to use him again as her photographic muse, for the launch of her 2022 autumn collection.
I did warn her that lightning didn’t strike twice where Catorze was concerned – unless, of course, it was the bad kind of lightning. But, having tried her luck once with him, with great results, Puppy Mamma couldn’t resist another go.
On the morning of the shoot, Cat Daddy decided to scatter stinky compost juice all over the garden. I know. I was doing my step workout outdoors at the time, so this wasn’t great timing. And, worse yet, I had the bifold doors open because I was listening out for the postman, and the gut-wrenching stink floated into the house and clung to every surface and every space.
When Puppy Mamma arrived, the whole house still reeked and Catorze, presumably unable to stand the stench, was asleep in the attic bedroom. I suggested that we take the props to him rather than vice versa, mainly because I knew that upstairs would smell better. However, Puppy Mamma had her heart set on photographing Catorze in the hearth and, after arranging the props in an artful fashion, she said, “It would be great if we could get Louis to sit right there, in the middle.”
Hmmm. This would have been impossible even if he were in a good mood. But after being rudely awoken from his slumber and dragged into a room stinking of rot? Non, non and thrice non.
Or so I thought.
Oh. Mon. Dieu. The little sod was flawless, and Puppy Mamma was able to take some of the best pictures I have ever seen of him. As a result I am feeling much more confident of achieving a passable Official 2022 Hallowe’en Portrait (although I may have to ask Puppy Mamma to do it). Cat Daddy is super-proud of his spooky boy, although he would punch himself in both eyes before he ever admitted it.
If you are anything like me and you start thinking about the next Hallowe’en before the pumpkins from the last one have even made it to the compost heap, you will have organised yourself a long time ago. However, if you are a normal person, please have a look here at Puppy Mamma’s handmade seasonal decorations. And below is Le Roi‘s best picture from the photo shoot.
Cat Daddy: “He never poses like this for you. In fact, your photos of him are always the worst.” Thanks for that.
Tip: to make the model more compliant, dust the props liberally with catnip. (I’m not joking. You can even see the bits on the floor.)
louiscatorze.com 