When I settle anywhere in the garden why do my cats seem to see it as their cue to show off?
So – its a tranquil June evening and I am sipping tea in my favourite spot for a sunny evening - beside our ‘tiny’ garden pond - and I am watching the red and blue Damsel Flies flitting across the water - the scene is set.
Enter stage left and right; Oberon and Dilly Dumpling.
They flounce and bounce, tails curled into furry question marks, and play endless rounds of ‘tag’; rushing back and fore - closer and closer to where I sit as they dash from one hedge to the other – rolling around the grass in a hairy ball for a few seconds in pretend fights.
Yes – getting closer with each pass – to the water.
Cats are supposed to hate water. So why do my three seem hell bent on sampling its delights?
Oberon catches up with Dilly, leaping two feet in the air before crashing down on her head to clout her round the ears. They tussle, rolling over and over…
And sploosh!
Oberon has over-egged his jump and tail and bum are sub merged for… oh – a nano-second at the very least - before he is air-born and legging it into the hedge. Highly indignant he peers at me from under the hawthorn – sneezing and blinking his embarrassment.
But it’s a short lived recess. In a few minutes they are back to their unending tag.
Closer and closer – skirting the edging stones on the pond - jumping over my outstretched legs.
Oberon hides behind a large flower pot waiting for Dilly to rush by. He crouches. He wriggles. He leaps – executing one of his more enthusiastic ‘Tigger’ bounces with at least two feet of clean air between him and the ground...
But Dilly is wiser to him than he knows. She swerves. She dodges. She turns in her own length – so graceful and so fast. Confident in her skills of evasion! She is a cat! A supreme being! She can do anything! She can walk on water…
Wrong!
Two strides across the duck weed – and then…
Sploosh!!
Dilly's rear end plummets beneath the greenness. Before I can even begin to giggle she performs a perfect vertical take off – taking tips from Tom and Jerry – out, across garden, and in through the window - strewing duck weed and pond water in all directions.
Floorshow over for the evening? Not a bit of it.
Enter the heavyweight contender - Betty Poop. Regal - bulky - and none too bright.
She strolls into view – sees Oberon rolling in the dust on the edging stones – and tries a tentative, elephantine, gambol. She pats his tail. Oberon is up and dancing! The contender in his sparring ring. He pats her chubby bum - leaps over her – she rolls – trying to catch him as he glides over head … and…
Sploosh!
Betty slides gracefully into the shallow end of the pond.
Here the traditional pattern of sploosh-and-sprint is broken. Unlike her more agile - and more aware - pals Betty does not run on contact with that despised element 'water'. No. She sits, leaning against the sedge grass, blinking, looking around her, totally perplexed…
Sorry to say – I could only sit and laugh - in rib busting howls - as she sits, top leaning into the undergrowth and gazing down at her submerged bottom half. You almost hear her - 'What happened? How did I get here?'
After a good twenty seconds she finally heaves her podgy body out of the pond, and, pausing only to shake each sodden leg in turn, stomp, very slowly and deliberately, back down the lawn to the window from whence she had come just a minute before.
I am laughing at the crying stage now - and she pauses at the window to glare at me., Because the one thing cats hate more than water? Being laughed at!!
Head up – tail erect – haughty distain spoiled only by the duck weed clinging to soaked and bedraggled fur – she hops through the window to sulk for an hour.
Oh yes – Cats and water J The cats may disagree – but from where I am sitting? Hours of endless entertainment.
