samhain

L’as de pique

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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.

This is the look we get when we sneeze.

L’Heure du Diable

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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.

This photo just screams “1st November”.

Les monstres qui rôdent autour de nous

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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.

Hallowe’en Boys’ Club.

La menace fantôme

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With Hallowe’en just around the corner, Louis Catorze has ramped up the creepy to Expert Level.

He has started opening doors and shutters, and he is remarkably good at it. However, when we wake up to find the wardrobe doors open it can feel very unnerving. Think Sixth-Sense-meets-Poltergeist and you will understand what I mean.

Naturellement, he hasn’t worked out how to shut doors after himself – unless it is to shut himself in a room, and then he decides he can’t be bothered to let himself out and screams for us to do it.

When my sister and her family came to visit, Cat Daddy and I assumed that, if anyone made trouble, it would be the kids. Not so. Catorze prowled around the house all night, opening bedroom doors repeatedly and scaring my sister by projecting strange shadow shapes on the baby monitor. (The moving vertical candy cane shape really foxed her until she finally realised that it was his up-tail with the silly kink at the end.) Once dawn had broken he was clearly bored of scaring everyone quietly, and that was when he came crashing into our room, screaming.

At breakfast that morning we discovered that everyone had a complaint about him, except for my eldest niece (aged 3) who said, “Louis came to look after me in the night! I love him!”

Cat Daddy: “I guess someone has to.”

My sister just about managed to catch him in action in the picture below. As if a black cat with vampire teeth weren’t already sinister enough:

Le pouvoir du vampire

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This week I asked some of my students whether they liked dogs or cats. They said cats. This is the correct answer.

The conversation then led to our own cats, past and present, including, of course, Louis Catorze, and at the end of the lesson I showed them a photo of him. They were utterly spellbound and speechless at the sight of his magnificent vampire fangs.

“Miss, he’s REALLY beautiful!” they exclaimed. “Can we see more pictures? Can we just look at cat pictures next lesson instead of doing work?” They will never know how much I wanted to say yes to this. French pluperfect tense grammar rules or cat photos? It’s a no-brainier, oui?

Anyway, the students now appear to be under the impression that people would pay a fortune for a black vampire cat, and they are devising a Dragons’ Den-worthy scheme to get rich by breeding Le Roi and having his hypothetical Reine birth lots of fanged babies. Cat Daddy spat his tea all over his newspaper when I told him this, and said, “Bad, bad idea. One: he has freakish physical and mental abnormalities that are best not passed on. Two: females aren’t his thing. Three: he has no balls and can’t reproduce anyway.”

Good points, well made. But, as the little sod’s big day approaches, I’m with my students on this one. I think that we have been blessed with a very special gift indeed, because who DOESN’T want a vampire cat at Hallowe’en? And it is my civic duty to share this gift with the world.

Cat Daddy again: “No. It’s really not.”

Que Dieu ait son âme

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I am taking a break from Le Château this weekend, leaving Boys’ Club to itself – Cat Daddy has assured me that he will “try to remember” to feed and water Louis Catorze – and I have escaped to the south coast for my annual Halloweekend celebration with my sister and her family.

It’s a tradition that we started some years ago and still continue to this day, and this time I am lucky enough to be a guest in their lovely town house overlooking the sea. My sister doesn’t have any cats but she does have a homicidal Hitchcock-esque seagull, easily big enough to carry off Catorze should it feel so inclined, who lives on her roof and who dive-bombs passers-by every now and again. So I haven’t entirely escaped from unhinged animals who want to kill me.

To help us decide what to do this weekend, we have been taking inspiration from Tina Brown’s book “Haunted Experiences in Hastings and Beyond”. The last chapter is entitled “Ghostly Animals” and, would you believe, it turns out that they’re all cats. Every. Last. One.

Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: it seems that, whilst other animals have got the hang of the whole resting in peace thing, cats haven’t (or don’t want to). Even death is not enough to stop the little sods from driving us round the bend. I am shocked but not the slightest bit surprised.

Do you have any scary cat stories? Have you encountered any ghost cats, or have your living cats ever freaked you out with their kitty ESP, their spirit-spotting capabilities or their general creepiness? If so, I would love to hear all about it.

Le chat (un poème spécial pour la fête d’Halloween)

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B9116EC7-7EFA-4767-9947-6514114EB0AFOnce upon a midnight dreary, while I slumbered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, sweetly dreaming, suddenly I was blaspheming,
As of some one loudly screaming, screaming at my chamber door —
“’Tis some little sod,” I muttered, “screaming at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I was sober, for I know it was October;
And each waft of limey odour chilled me to my very core.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow
For my eyes, no sleep, just sorrow – sorrow at the screaming jaws —
Of the loud and rude shitweasel whom the demons name Catorze —
Bugging me for evermore.

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Votre Majesté” said I, “truly some silence I implore.
But the fact is I was dreaming, and you caused my wild blaspheming.
And so loudly you came screaming, screaming at my chamber door;
That I know full well I heard you” — here I opened wide the door —
Darkness there and nothing more.

Back into the chamber, learning that my ears were still a-burning,
All at once I heard paws turning, somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is how the Sun King pitter-patters;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, this vile din I can’t ignore —
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore —
’Tis Le Roi and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
Pitter-pattered a small panther, tail aloft with odious roar;
“Though thy fur be foul and gritty, thou,” I said, “‘tis quite a pity,
Ghastly, grim and noisy kitty, wandering fresh from canine war —
Tell me what the heck you want now, for thy screaming’s quite a bore!” —
Quoth the Sun King, “Nevermore.”

“Salaud!” said I, “thing of evil! – little sod, if cat or devil!
He’s a fiend that walks among us, fangèd demon with four paws –
Tell my face with mouth a-yawning if, before the new year’s dawning,
I shall see a peaceful morning sans disturbance from Catorze.
Take away this hellish racket, now; begone, thy screaming jaws!”
Quoth the Sun King, “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, cat or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting.
“Get thee back into le salon, sur la chaise that you adore!
Leave no cat hair as a token of that scream thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my cursèd sleep unbroken! Quit my chamber, out the door! —
Take thy face from out my sight, and take thine arse from off my floor!” —
Quoth the Sun King, “Nevermore.”

And the Sun King, fangs a-gleaming, still is screaming, still is screaming
By the basking bust of Bastet just beside my chamber door;
And my eyes have not stopped weeping: thanks to him, I am not sleeping,
And the lamp-light o’er him creeping throws his shadow on the floor —
And my peace, ‘cause of that crotte de merde who’s screaming at my door —
Shall be granted — nevermore!

Attention aux courges butternut

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Beware of butternut squash, Mesdames et Messieurs. No, not marauding street ones wearing hockey masks and carrying chain saws, but the innocent-looking seeds that you unsuspectingly toss into the compost heap.

Thanks to the amazing richness of the soil around our compost heap, Cat Daddy and I have managed to grow a butternut squash without even trying. This is good, right? Well, the bonus dinner ingredient is quite a result, but the plant is an absolute beast, sprawling everywhere like a flesh-eating triffid and suffocating everything in its path. And nobody seems to tell you this, but both the stems and the leaves expel tiny, invisible barbs.

I should have guessed that it was a nasty plant when, instead of stepping over it or brushing past it, Louis Catorze would clear it with a massive leap (which won’t be helping his knee one bit). I thought at the time that he was just being dramatic but, if an idiot like Catorze is prepared to take such pains to avoid this plant, there is obviously a reason. Even a cautious cat absentmindedly brushing past could find itself speared but, should your cat have a more gung-ho temperament and be inclined to frolic around in your vegetable patch, this could spell very bad news indeed.

Given all the health issues we already have with Catorze, we really didn’t want to be picking painful barbs out of his skin, too. So Cat Daddy got to work destroying the evil plant and sweeping the barbs off the path (which was quite some feat given that they are invisible), whilst I chopped up the monster tendrils into more manageable pieces for the garden waste bag. All that is left now is the main stem bearing the single fruit.

And Le Roi sat and slow-blinked at us throughout these measures intended for his protection, watching us get painfully skewered and disembowelled. It would appear that he is not as stupid as we thought.

Here he is, snuggling up to the butternut squash and continuing, inexplicably, to remain a barb-free zone. I’m prepared to bet Le Château on the fact that he won’t sit this nicely with the pumpkin I have bought for his official Halloween portrait.

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Le sixième sens

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I am delighted to report that Louis Catorze only escaped once on Halloween night, and that we all survived (apart from the large mouse that he brought in and terrorised the next day). But, although it’s all over for another year, the scares continue in the form of his creepy kitty sixth sense, disproving our theory that it’s directly proportional to intelligence.

Despite not being the brightest star in the galaxy, he is able not only to differentiate his staff’s footsteps from others but also to anticipate our homecoming in advance. He peacefully sleeps through noises made by the neighbours, the postman and random passers-by. But the minute he hears his daddy – or, rather unnervingly, just BEFORE he hears his daddy – he races to the front door so fast that his stupid little feet can’t keep up with themselves, and he skids around on the slippy floorboards like Bambi on ice. Sometimes he goes skidding right past Cat Daddy as he opens the door and ends up outside on the doormat and, to teach him a lesson for being such such a weirdo, Cat Daddy shuts the door on him.

Don’t worry, we always let him in again. (Well, apart from the time we forgot about him, and he ended up out at The Front, unsupervised, on the rampage for an hour.) And, a few weeks ago, when Cat Daddy remembered to let him in, he was greeted by this sight:

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He’s equally perceptive when it comes to my arrival; a few evenings ago I took a while to park the car because I reversed in at the wrong angle and messed it up. When I finally came indoors, Catorze was right at the door – and, apparently, he’d been meowing there for a good minute or two before Cat Daddy had even heard the car.

He’s a scary little freak – living with him is as if Halloween never ended – but we love him.

La sortie d’Halloween

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As Halloween approaches, cat freaks the world over debate that all-important question: should we keep our usually-outdoor cats under house arrest on the night of the 31st?

My responses are as follows: do you trust your neighbourhood and its residents? And do you trust your cat? We are lucky enough to be able to give a yes to the former but, sadly, it’s a “Hell, no” to the latter; Louis Catorze ignores the rules, goes rogue when he feels like it and, quite simply, is way too much of a liability.

His big brother Luther, although quite the adventurer, fortunately hated kids. So, when sugared-up hordes of them came a-knocking, we could rely on him to run in the opposite direction.

Louis Catorze is different, and risks life and limb to escape into the jaws of danger at moments when we really aren’t expecting it. On Thursday night, for instance, when Cat Daddy opened the front door to put out some rubbish, Catorze shot out and headed straight for the fireworks in the park opposite Le Château. His wayward arse was eventually hauled to safety, but not before the indignity of being poked out from under a bush with a mop.

And, because Sa Majesté LOVES strange men, he can’t be trusted to steer clear of psychos in the unlikely event of them turning up in our neighbourhood. If he were to happen upon a gang of youths dressed in clown masks and carrying spades and bin bags, he would probably roll at their feet and then happily follow them into the woods, slow-blinking sweetly as they buried the bodies.

So, whilst the little sod will be allowed to come and go freely at The (safe and enclosed) Back, on Halloween night The Front will be as airtight and impenetrable as Kim Kardashian’s new jewellery box. I hope your furry overlords manage whatever containment procedures are imposed upon them, and that you all have a safe and happy Halloween.

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