Maddie's Diary

A Message to Mum's Friends' Cats

Dear all

Good Meows to you. This is obviously translated from Cat to Human by my human carer. I’m asking your humans to pass on this message to you because, frankly, I need some intelligent life forms to communicate with and as you know, humans – useful to us though they are – fail miserably on the intelligence front. Mine always refers to herself as Mum, for instance, when it’s obvious to anyone who cares to look at us that there’s no way she could have given birth to me. I’m obviously of a higher species.

I meet other cats around here, of course, but some of them are too tediously territorial for my liking and won’t even tolerate me strolling into their gardens for a friendly chat without all that macho showing off, doing the back-arching and hissing as if I’m any kind of a threat to them at twelve years of age, middle-aged and just wanting a peaceful life. And that’s what I’d like a sensible opinion on, if any of you care to help: the subject of a peaceful life.

I like a peaceful life.

The thing is, since my brother Monty left us, my life has been mostly, if I’m honest, a little bit too peaceful. I’ve even found myself asking the question: What do other cats actually DO all day? All right, I know that’s a bit of a silly question. You don’t have to tell me – we sleep for most of it, obviously. But inevitably, the time comes when we find ourselves awake, whether we like it or not, even if only for an hour or so here and there. And the shocking truth is that sometimes, the food bowl turns out to be empty, so we can’t even eat to pass the time.

I have memories of my kittenhood, when Monty and I lived with our real (cat) mum, and our brothers and sisters – there were nine of us altogether and there was a lot of playing, and play-fighting. I didn’t like the play fights. I’ve always been a bit nervous of anyone jumping on me. Monty had a habit of doing that, and he was much bigger than me, so although I miss him – as I said in my previous diary entry – I’m more relaxed now I’m an only cat. More relaxed, yes, but . . . I suppose, if I’m honest, a bit bored.

It's not that I want to go back to kittenhood and start playing again. I’ve got a basket full of toys, and a tunnel that Monty and I used to chase each other through. But I don’t play with them any more. Even when Mum sprays them with Catnip to encourage me, I just roll over them a few times to get the Catnip on my fur, as we do, and that’s it.

My basket of toys

Sometimes Mum gets down on her knees – which seems to make her flinch a bit for some reason – and starts rolling balls around, or throwing toy mice in all directions, looking at me kind-of excitedly, and I feel a bit embarrassed for her because I think she’s a pretty old human and she really shouldn’t still be playing with toys. So I pretend I haven’t noticed, to spare her feelings.

‘Come on, Maddie,’ she says, obviously wanting me to join in, poor thing. I wonder if she gets bored too. Most of the time she’s sitting tapping at her laptop thing, saying she’s working on a book, and telling me off if I walk over the tappy parts, which is a shame as I quite like seeing the funny little squiggles that come up on the screen. Sometimes when I feel offended I hide myself under the blanket I'm supposed to sleep on. It's more fun to hide under it. The humans never have any clue that I'm under there, I'm so well hidden. It's great fun - you should try it!

Nobody can see me when I'm under the blankets.

I suppose life will get more interesting now the weather’s getting warm again and I’m going outside a lot more. But I’ve even lost interest, a bit, in chasing the flying prey and the little scampering prey as much as I used to. Mum and Dad never seem very pleased when I catch them and bring them indoors to show them – it’s disheartening, to be honest. There was that time Monty caught one of the hopping, croaking prey. He brought it in and left it by Mum’s favourite chair, as usual, but it hopped off and they had to dismantle the whole sofa unit to try to find it – and by then, it had hopped into another room, and Monty got the blame! I couldn’t understand that. And then, another time, when they were away and I was being fed by my temporary carer, I caught one of the larger type of scampering prey. It was a great catch, if you don’t mind me saying so, as it was pretty big, but when I dropped it by Mum’s chair it wriggled off underneath and I forgot about it. Apparently it must (sadly) have died under there and when they came home from holiday there were a lot of flies. Dad found the dead prey and Mum looked like she was going to be sick – and once again, I got the blame. I didn’t ask it to crawl under the chair and die, did I? And it was their fault anyway, for going on holiday without me!

Well, as you all know, life as a superior species can be very trying. Is it any wonder we give up and just go back to sleep?

Giving up and going back to sleep is the best option in any circumstance really.

Please let me know if you have any ideas for making sense of this life of mine as a single cat. It’s not that I’m not content – I don’t want to share my home with any other feline now that Monty’s gone. A new cat wouldn’t understand what Mum calls my funny ways. I don’t know what’s so funny about wanting to have my fur brushed (always outside, please) as many times as I can demand, every day, and howling if I don’t get my own way about it. Or what’s so funny about freaking out at the sight of an empty food bowl. I’ve had to share with eight other cats when I was younger, don’t forget. I’ve known hardship! But as you know, humans can be very difficult and need a lot of training.

Sorry but nobody likes to see an empty dish!

Please message me via Mum, dear friends, if you have any advice to offer me. Thank you. Much love and lots of purrs – from Maddie.