Cat People

I was up at five this morning. Not by choice. Never by choice.

I was woken by an almighty loud crash and a screaming wailing noise that sounded like the gates of Hell had ripped open in my kitchen. Meeester sprang into action like a cougar, coughed slightly, turned over and said, “You see to it”.

Effectively our splendid lady cats, Lulu and Libby, were being brutally battered by their birth brother Ziggy The Ginger Bastard. He had brazenly come in their (not his- he doesn't live with us) cat flap and set about terrorizing them both. Sonny The Black Menace, our spaniel and potential protector of the lady cats was blissfully sleeping upstairs in his Spiderman jammies lying on the bottom tier of the bunk beds with his sooky blanket tucked under his chin and lace rimmed sleep mask covering his peepers. He was not due to rise until eight, and then only if someone brought him a nice cup of sweet tea and a freshly toasted crumpet.

The job fell to me.

I went down to the kitchen just in time to see a ginger flash disappearing out the flap and a swish of black “Hooded Claw” type velvet cloakage.

I looked at my two fluffy ladies cowering demurely in the corner. Where did the love go?

It occurred to me that Ziggy is in many ways like Jim Corr, guitar player and brother from horrible Irish pseudo folk rock/beauty pageant, The Corrs.

Here are the Corrs. They are siblings, we’re told.

Poor Jim Corr:

Look! The photographer hasn't even lit him!

See Jim there? Poor Jim Corr. Not exactly pick of the litter is he? In fact, some might suggest that Mrs Corr had a wee drunken and ill-thought through clinch with the bean-faced storeman at work that Christmas Party in 1972, whilst the handsomely chiseled Heathcliffe-like Papa Corr stayed at home watching over his three beautiful daughters which were the spit of their Daddy.

Nine months later, there you have it, a son for Papa Corr. But he is a cuckoo in the nest. They all know it, but no one dares speak it. Oh,...oh dear. Poor little Jim. Stick him in with the girls, something might just rub off on him. Quick someone give him some sunglasses for Jaysus sake!

So here is evidence of some bizarre genetic goings on in my own little gang.

Here are my ladies.

Talullah "Lulu" Martini

Elizabeth "Libby" Martini

A couple of prizewinners, aren’t they?

And here is their violent brother, in the only photo I have of him. It's the one I saw of the little litter on the Cat Protection website before me and my buddy adopted them wholesale. OK, he's quite cute there and I do have a very soft spot for him still but.... Ziggy is now fifty times that size and full of rippling muscles and covered in tattoos. He has ASBOS and a gym membership! He is also supposed to be resident at my pal’s house over the road but he seems to prefer our house, with its ready supply of beautiful maidens for him to cuff gangsta rapper style.

Yo, where's ma bitches?

Ziggy also reminds me of this character from Coronation Street. This is Gary Windass, the Young Pretender to the Bad Boy throne of dear departed Les Battersby. He is currently about to get “sent down” for GBH after he put the weasly David Platt in hospital with a single freckled knuckle punch.

See? Same hair, and, same attitude.

The thing is, two weeks ago our well-loved old boy cat, Harleyboy, who was seventeen, died. And my ladies were left without a dad/man about the house. Although in the last few months, our Harley was unable to see, didn’t know what the blazes was going on, and was frightened to go outside never mind see off a feisty ginger intruder, his musky presence was enough to warn off other toms.

When I told my daughter that Harley had gone she wailed and cried. And then she tearfully broke off to ask, in all seriousness, “But who will look after Lulu and Libby?!”

We thought that was tremendously cute. But cuteness aside, it appears she is right. Who will look after Lulu and Libby?

And how can I go about persuading my family that we need a new Tom Cat about the House of the Flying Martinis, given that even my youngest child declared about six months ago, "Mummy, we've too many animals."

We need our own tom round here. Preferably one of those lovely Bengal cats, that just happen to grow to the size of a panther and look like they could be rather handy at five in the morning.

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