This weekend, the UK moved from BST (British Summer Time) to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), allowing an extra hour in bed, or waking up an hour early, as in my case. Theoretically, the cats snuggle down for another hours sleep.

However, the two of my cats who eat more than once a day had other plans. So, Sunday at 08:00 GMT, Poppy comes charging up the stairs to see why I am running late. I am still in bed. This leaves Poppy a bit puzzled. At this point, Flo sees Poppy through the mesh grill and starts hissing and growling, continuing her long and fruitless campaign to become the alpha cat.

Then, all of a sudden, Flo realises that she is HUNGRY and wants her breakfast NOW! So she stops the hissing and growling and starts rattling the grill and meowing at maximum volume. When Flo wants to, she can be very LOUD and when food is involved that is the only volume she uses. I yell at both of them to go back to bed and leave me alone. Temporary silence ensues while the gruesome twosome think for a bit. Although they hate each other, they come to some sort of agreement where hostilities are suspended until after breakfast. This is the first time Flo and Poppy have agreed on ANYTHING.

Meanwhile I am oblivious, lying in bed reading my book and enjoying a lie in. Flo resumes rattling the grill and meowing her head off and Poppy starts her maximum volume meowing. On it's own, this is quite impressive, but compared to Flo, she is quiet. I just tell them to go back to bed and continue reading. Bad move. The cats don't care that a carer hasn't arrived yet. They want breakfast NOW! Poppy jumps up onto my bed. This briefly disturbs Grace from her sleep. She glares at Poppy for several seconds and then decides that she can't be bothered to throw Poppy off, so she curls back up next to my leg and goes back to sleep. I am now seriously outnumbered. Poppy walks up the bed to sit as close to me as possible and starts meowing her head off (again).

Meanwhile, Flo is still rattling the grill and meowing at maximum volume. I am in serious danger of going deaf. My further attempts to head them off all fail, so I carefully get out of bed, getting glared at by Grace in the process, and go downstairs to sort out the food. Maybe then I can go back to my nice warm bed. Poppy gets fed downstairs, so she races past me as I am going down in the stair lift. Flo stops rattling the grill but keeps the meowing going, just in case I forget about her. This, despite the fact that it is actually impossible to forget about anything that loud. I get Poppy's food down and she immediately starts inhaling it. I still get no peace from Madam upstairs, but at least it is quite down here. I then sort Flo out. This takes longer, as her medication has to be concealed within the food. Back upstairs I go, food bowl in hand. I remove the grill from the office doorway and prop it up out of the way. I wish her good morning slightly sarcastically and put her food down. Flo sniffs it and glares at me. She then jumps onto the office chair, climbs onto the desk, steps up onto the window sill and sits down with her back towards me. I am standing there baffled. It is her favourite flavour, the correct amount and she is used to the medication being there, so what is the problem?! Stupid cat!

All this, just because the clocks have changed. [sigh]

Copyright © Andrea Fuller
October 29, 2001