Hello again, humans. Mum says I must spend a bit of time meowing my journal again, to bring you up to date. Hope it won’t take long. I’ve got a lot to do today. I haven’t even had a nap yet and there's still some food in my bowl waiting to be polished off.
Well, last time, I told you how my sister Maddie and I were allowed out into the Great Outdoors. It’s been a very exciting time since then. At first Mum and Dad didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as we did. They kept standing in the middle of the garden calling us in strange, high-pitched voices. We felt a bit sorry for them, so we did try to make an effort to come back to see them when they wanted us to. But there were occasions when we were exploring the garden next-door and it was just too much fun to hurry back. (Yes, I know – it was ridiculous of them to think we were going to stay within artificial human-style boundaries. We’ve adopted the next-door garden as part of our territory. It’s bigger than ours, so we were obviously going to claim it).
It was actually a bit of a struggle at first, getting into next-door. We had to climb a shed, squeeze through the branches of a tree, and scale down a fence the other side. We soon got the hang of it. One day, Mum was so worried about Maddie not coming back when she was called, she went through a gate into next-door’s garden herself, calling her and looking under bushes. In fact I'd seen Maddie, lying on top of next-door’s shed, rolling on her back. She was quite happy up there – but when Mum found her, she thought she was stuck. She tried to reach her but she wasn’t tall enough and of course, couldn’t climb up there like we can. Maddie eventually jumped down and strolled off quite casually. I told her off later. Mum thinks you’re still a little nervous cat, I meowed. It isn’t fair to make her worried like that.
Then one day, Dad started doing something very strange to the inside of the wall of our house. He was making a lot of noise and a lot of mess, and we scarpered out into the garden. When he’d finished, we came back to have a look and to our amazement, he’d made a hole in the wall! He then put a kind of tunnel through the hole, fixed a little door on the inside, and said ‘There you are, Monty, Maddie – it’s your cat flap.’
Of course, we’re not completely ignorant. We’ve used a cat flap before, we know how they work, although we hadn’t used one with a tunnel before. I was really chuffed to be able to go in and out when I wanted, instead of waiting for the big door to be opened. It has to be said, I’m quite chunky and very fluffy, but I can wriggle through OK. Maddie’s much slimmer and sleeker than me but she makes a real fuss about using the flap. I’d rather use the big door, she keeps meowing . The flap messes up my fur. That’s females for you!
It’s a bit annoying that Mum & Dad keep the flap locked up at night, and when they’re not at home. They keep talking about wanting to keep us safe. I suppose they mean well. I've heard them say that they've had other cats before we came to live with them, and apparently a long time ago, one went missing and never came back, which does seem incredibly ungrateful.
The final part of this episode is a bit shameful. I don’t know why, but I made poor Mum quite upset one day. I was sorry about all the fuss it caused, but you see, I’d found something really exciting in the garden. It was a slimy jumping thing, and I had great fun chasing it around, and was so proud of myself when I caught it, I took it indoors to show Mum and Dad. It was wriggling a bit as I carried it inside, and its legs were dangling out of my mouth. I was hoping to let it go inside the house so I could chase it around some more – but when Mum screamed : ‘Oh no! Monty’s got a FROG!’ , I ended up the one being chased instead, by Dad! He made me drop the frog, and he caught it himself and took it back outside. It was so disappointing and confusing. If it upsets them so much, I suppose I shouldn’t bring home any more of those kind of things, but it seems a shame when they’ve obviously been put in the garden for our enjoyment.
OK, I think I’ll just have a quick stroll around my territory now before coming back in for a lie down on my favourite sofa. You're up to date with our lives now, and I'm pleased to tell you that we’re completely settled and happy here in our Fur-ever Home, and I think even Maddie is much braver and happier these days. Maybe she’ll meow a diary post herself one day!
Fur-well for now, our human friends, and may all your frogs be live ones.