A day in the life, with six cats...

5.00am: vaguely wake up as Marion goes out to work a ridiculously early morning shift for the second day running this week.

5.45am: woken by a godawful series of crashes and bangs all over the house, finally centring on the bathroom. Find Ollie and Courtney attempting to simultaneously catch a large brown bird they've brought in through the catflap while preventing their mother Marblecake and adoptive father Splodge from getting a bite. Throw two very determined kittens out of the bathroom, locate my key for the security latch, go back into the bathroom followed by two kittens, throw kittens out of the bathroom again, unlatch and open the window so the bird can fly out, emerge from bathroom fighting off two kittens and their parents attempting to get back in, go back to bed.

6.00am: respond to another series of crashes and bangs, again from the bathroom. Discover that the bird is still hiding behind the toilet and the kittens have gone out through the catflap and jumped back in through the bathroom window, scattering a shelfload of toiletries everywhere. Attempt to catch the bird, which ends up as a silent-movie chase with me and the kittens all after the bird. I grab a Palestinian scarf I have covering up some stacked pictureframes and finally manage to net the bird in it at the front door. Emerge from front door stark naked shooing the kittens back inside, unwrap the bird on the path, see that it still seems mobile enough to make a getaway, and go back to bed.

6.30am: woken by an appalling pong to find Chloe has had diarrhoea under the bedroom window. Clean it up, then when going back find out that another cat (probably Ishtar) has peed in the hallway. Throw an old newspaper over it to soak it up and go back to bed. Feed the cats, which means shutting Ishtar in the bathroom as she gets different food. Go back to bed.

7.00am: woken by Ishtar meowing that she's had her breakfast and can she get out please. Let her out and go back to bed. Manage to sleep this time.

11.00am: get up (I don't work Fridays). Make coffee (a process which always involves Splodge demanding a cuddle) and read email (doing this without Splodge on my lap is unheard-of).

Afternoon: clean up cat pee. Change both inside and outside litter trays. Get dinner started. Marion comes back home and immediately notices that my shoes (in the hallway) have been puked on. Clean that up, but while I'm doing it Ishtar decides to throw up. I manage to interrupt her and get her to finish outside. Clean it up. Step in some more cat puke in my socks.

Just now: feed the cats. This involves giving Ishtar her special food again, in the bathroom. Ollie charges in and won't take no for an answer. When I pick him up to put him in the hallway, he grips the bathmat in his claws like grim death so I have to drop both kitten and bathmat together outside the door. I don't think any of them have puked on the bathmat yet.

To Do: pick up the cotton buds that either the bird or the kittens knocked off the bathroom window shelf. Wash socks. Also the bedroom rug that Chloe had diarrhoea on yesterday, and my trousers and Marion's underwear, both of which Ishtar peed on the night before that.

I do love my furries.

Copyright © Jack Campin
June 28, 2008