the indisputable leader of the gang....

I just tried to take a cat for a walk.

Now there's something that I never imagined I would hear myself saying. How the hell do you take a cat for a walk?

Well, you use a lead and harness, obviously.


Minou has been gracing us with her presence now for a little over two weeks, and since she started feeling better after a cold, she has proven to be quite an active little tyke. She spends most of her day whilst we are at work either sleeping or pottering about quietly in the kitchen and the dining room, so come evening, she is ready to go. No sooner has she been fed when she sets off tearing around the house on a mad half hour, burning up some of that pent up energy. She calms down a little at bedtime, and although she doesn't really sleep on the bed with us, she has taken to sleeping at the top of the stairs on the landing.

This peace lasts until roughly 05:30 in the morning, when I am suddenly awoken by the tinkling of the little bell attached to her collar and the feel of her paw pressing against my nose. She's pretty much all go after that, haring around the room, walking across the headboard of the bed, and most frightening of all, balancing on the edge of an open window....

The RSPCA have told us that we shouldn't start letting her out of the house for another 4 weeks, but she's clearly starting to chafe at the bit a little. So we bought her a harness with the intention of letting her start to get accustomed to the world outside her vantage point on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

Actually, she didn't really seem to mind the harness at all and she took a great delight in padding gently around the rather damp garden and carefully examining every nook and cranny. In fact, I think it's more realistic to say that I didn't take the cat for a walk at all: she took me. We certainly pootled around at her pace and did the things that she wanted to do.

Even a tink-tink-tink on her bowl didn't bring her shooting back into the house for her tea, and in the end I had to carry her in after she'd had a bit of a scare when she nearly fell off a little wall.

God. She's been here two weeks and already our lives revolve around this willful little creature.



How do you people cope with children? I'm exhausted just looking after a cat.