Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Naughty Kittie

Today

On Sunday, after a long day in the Bentley on the Mendip Classic Car Tour, I arrived home to find that Abby had slipped into our bedroom unseen and was asleep on our bed. I railed about this on Facebook and one friend commented, "I remember a cat called Ariadne who got up to similar tricks"

In My Day

When did I decide that cats on the bed was a no-no?

When I first had Ariadne I shared her. so to speak with a flat-mate. She quickly became "mine",  as I took responsibility for care during weekends and holidays.

4 Beulah Hill was a large Victorian house on four floors and my bedroom was in the attic. In addition to our family there were also some tenants living in a range of flatlets and other accommodation so it wasn't really acceptable for Ariadne to have the run of the house at night.

So she slept in  my room at nights. That effectively meant my bed of course. She would start out on top of the covers but she often ended up in the bed, once at least, right at the bottom where she kept my feet warm. On that occasion, I did slightly panic, worrying that there would be insufficient oxygen and I would be pulling a dead cat out of the bed. 

To be honest, there was something comforting about having a warm creature snuggled up with me, although when Ariadne took to bringing rodents in through the open window at the student house in Station Road, Worthing, that was altogether less comforting.

It was after my marriage, when Paul and I at last had our own place, that I put a stop to it. There were two reasons: the first one was that, quite frankly, a cat in the room interfered with our sex life. Secondly, however careful we were, the cats got fleas, and fleas, in my opinion, have no place in the bed!

Generally, Abby is a most mannerly cat who understand that the bedtime routine doesn't involve nipping upstairs to our room.  But, despite her seventeen years, she is sometimes quite cheeky and just decides that the price of being chased out is worth it for a few hours of blissful snuggliness in a place that smells reassuringly of us.

In 2008 when she had her dreadful accident, I think she imagined that she could sleep with us, as a child wants to climb into your bed when they're unwell. We found her not just on the bed, but tucked under the covers, with her head on the pillow and front paws on the bedspread. All this while wearing a "lampshade"!

Just be clear, Abby: your advanced age doesn't mean that the chasing out is going to stop!

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