Just found this photo of Carla on the camera card. I think it was taken last month when the world was sunny and lime green. She’s on the fence between our house and next door. She is a very beautiful old lady, isn’t she?
Categoryfelines
I like cats.
Boron has been sat between me and my laptop for about 20 minutes now, letting me kiss him while I type. http://twitpic.com/2yp9vq
Apparently I only use my webcam for pictures of me with the cats.
Me & Carla in March:
Me and Boron in May:
Me and Boron in July:
Me and Carla in July:
Me and Carla in October:
Then today – me and B:
Boron is asleep in between us, a light absorbing blur. I put my hand down to stroke his chest and he starts to purr. His head stretches back to maximise the stroking area and hanging above, his paws are floppy and soft, the claws so completely retracted that it makes it hard to believe they’re there.
Ten years ago, Boron bit my finger through to the bone. He was a stray then, a proper straggly semi-feral stray. It took months of building up his confidence before he’d approach us, months more before he dared to stay the night. He thought I was taking food from him – from him, the starving stray – when he bit me: I was taking a wooden skewer from him, a vaguely meaty skewer from a long-eaten cumberland sausage. I screamed, as you do, when his fang pierced my skin but I think he knew I wasn’t screaming at him. He jumped back about a foot but only a foot, and looked at me with a quizzical stare. Was I going to lash out at him? Would I cave and give him back the splintering stick? I didn’t want to undo our hard work socialising him so wrapping a piece of kitchen roll around my finger and wincing at the pain, I bent down and stroked him. He didn’t shy away so I found him a treat, and only when the bite and the scream was forgotten, did I leave him to tend to my deep wound.
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1. All of Team Peach is on the bed when we wake up and we sing the ‘Team Peach on the Bed’ song. (“Team Peach on the bed, fa la la la la. Carla on the bed, La la la la la. Boron on the bed, Bee bee bee bee bee. Lily on the bed, Lil alil lil lil. Team Peach on the Bed, Carla, Bee and Lil.” Yes.)
2. We cook together for the second night in a row – last night working together filling skewers then bbqing them, today working side by side on our own mammoth creations. Cooking is usually a solitary activity, it’s nice to have company for a change.
3. He washes, I dry and we both sing along to the music.
1. We hug and feel paws stretching out against our waists, the hound trying to join in.
2. We go into the hills to the south, following the tributaries leading from our beck. One stream opens out into a quagmire and John stomps up it, the proud owner of wellies for the first time in nearly two decades. Lily – who is now allowed off lead in the woods and runs at top speed EVERYWHERE – creates muddy waves as she bounds back towards from her distant travels and we take that as cue to return to dry land.
3. Bums touch as they curl up next to me on the sofa.
4. The dog likes on her back, feet twitching in dreams, as the intruder (John) enters the house. She wakes – finally – when he calls her (“Crap guard dog! Crap guard dog, where are you?”) and runs at him, ball in mouth, ready to play.
© 2024 Louisa Parry