Deadly Dandelion

Today

The sun's been shining for a week; time to add instant colour to the garden and hold back the weeds. I'd just yanked out my first weed (a large dandelion) when Paul announced tea. Feeling peckish I made myself a snack. I debated on washing my hands but as I'd only touched a single plant I didn't bother. "I doubt I'll poison myself" I reasoned.

In My Day

Things are so much more frightening when you're a child. There were many tales about the dangers of poisonous plants designed to put terror into your heart, Quite apart from Deadly Nightshade (the name gave you the shivers) there was the glorious Laburnum (why did people plant them in gardens where there were children? At least Deadly Nightshade was wild and couldn't help itself) and a host of attractive and lethal berries come autumn. I just about dared to pick and eat blackberries.

I remember one spring, entranced by the beauty of the Hawthorn, picking some sprays to perfume 4BH. When I told another child she looked horrified and trotted out some pre-druidical cant about "May" blossom in the house bringing bad luck. Sick with fear in case the house had collapsed or unimaginable disaster had hit my family I could hardly wait to get home from school and throw out every last fragment of the dangerous plant as Mamma looked on in bemusement.

Dandelions grew in every crevice in post-war London and we all held in fear the thick milky liquid that came out of the stems. One touch of it on your lips and you'd die in agonies, apparently. I believed it all and scrubbed away before I'd go near food.

Actually, it appears that all parts of the Dandelion are edible and that the sap has many beneficial properties. And my garden's looking beautiful while I'm feeling fine.

There's a Place for Us

Today

There's a widely held fallacy which is that cats are more connected to places than people. As Agnes & Albinoni (Liz will call him "Albers" and I suppose I can't object as he belongs to her now) are comfortably settled in now, being more attached to each other and their feeding bowls than anything else.

And Abby successfully travelled with us to Brighton, taking only a couple of hours to find some favoured places (Under the chaise long where she imagines she's hidden but doesn't realise her tail's sticking out, and by the sitting room radiator). Having us there to cuddle her is clearly what matters most and a total absence of other cats.

In My Day

I've had a few travelling cats. Ariadne travelled home with me nearly every weekend, came on holiday to Blue Anchor bay and home with her kitten Algernon at the end of one summer term. She came with me to Eastbourne where she so upset the resident tortoiseshell cat that I had to ask Mamma to look after her at 4BH. She lived with me at the Gatehouse, Wilmington, happily hunting in the meadows, at Cromwell Road, Hove and Belmont. She never seemed to require settling in; if she could smell my scent and hear my voice she was fine.

Annalise and Ajax used to travel in the car, attached only by harnesses and leads. We took them with us, much like one takes a dog; they were happy anywhere. It was only when they were at the gatehouse without us that they ran off, never to be seen again.

I rather like to feel that it's me that makes the difference, unless it's just a full feeding bowl!

Cat Brain

Today

After much agonising we decided that the kitties had to go. We love them dearly, despite their naughtiness, but Abby just couldn't get used to them.

Lizzie, bless her, has added them to her cat menagerie and it's turning out OK. Agnes has surprised us all with her insouciant way of exploring her new environment, the way in which she intimidated Klaus in his own front room and the fact that she has worked out how to unlock the catflap!

There have been many discussions about the intelligence of cats; unmeasurable, it seems. My experience suggests an enormous variability in the style of their intelligence. Some know just how to please their owners; others how to maximise their standing in the neighbourhood. Some can see themselves in mirrors; others can recognise images on TV or sounds on the radio. All my cats have learnt their names (or approximations - Albinoni looks up if you call him "Al Capone") but Liz doesn't think that Klaus or Stevesie really know their names. I think it's down to a sort of feline cost-benefit analysis.

In My Day

In terms of intelligence that humans can appreciate, I guess that Agamemnon was the tops. He was the only cat I ever had who had worked out the relationship between the door handle and the door opening. He once got the fridge door open and ate his entire next three days' food in one go. He used to hurl himself against the hatch door at Rowan Avenue until the flimsy magnet catch gave way and we were forced to put a bolt on it.

Once at Mead Close he learnt to hang onto the door handle trying with all his strength to open the door. He succeeded once or twice too; if he had been a little weightier he'd have opened it regularly, thus obliging us to fit more bolts. The door handle was covered in scratches where he'd hung unto it trying to depress it.

It seems that, if your animals are clever, we forgive them any naughtiness that transpires.

There's an old story about a cat, pig and dog who'd been trained to expect food after a particular door set into a large wall was opened. The wall was removed and it took the pig and the dog very little time to work out that they could now get to the food whenever they wanted. The cat, however, continued to sit beside the door in the middle of nowhere until it was opened.

Just a stupid cat, I guess, and clearly no equal to my Agamemnon or Agnes.