This is Four and he is pleased with himself.
My nights have been pretty much sleepless since I let cats move into my life. I can't remember what is means to lounge around in bed until late morning at the weekend and I'm up at 5am for work so to sleep in occasionally would be nice.
This morning was a little different, I'm on leave so no need to climb out of bed at silly o'clock. Four starts yowling at 6am, I know this yowl, its for food. I go downstairs and place half a pouch of mechanised meet into a bowl and he dives in, won't even let m break the chunks up. I leave him to it and go back to bed. The yowling starts up again, I ignore it, to do this is possible and I have Ralf and Alfie on my bed we are comfortable and I nod off to Four's feline chatter.
I am slightly disturbed by a thump from downstairs, I don't pay much attention to it although Ralf and Alfie do, they jump off the bed and go downstairs. Its about 8am now and I hear noises like one of them is using the litter tray, that's fine as long as there isn't a pong to follow which means I have to get up, remove the offending pong and squirt some air freshener around. There is no pong, ok back to sleep. It now sounds like they are playing and running in and out of the kitchen and hallway. I'm ok with that, they might play a bit rough but at least they do socialise in their own funny way.
Alfie jumps back on my bed at 9am, all right maybe this is all I get, not too early but not too late, Alfie is walking over me and at 5kg that's a heavy cat. Time to get up and officially give the cats breakfast. I stand at the top of the stairs looking down and notice a mess on the carpet just by the front door. I'm annoyed, my cats know how to use the litter tray and if one of them has pooped on the carpet I'm withholding treats and snacks. It is not a poop.
I look closer and I can't believe my eyes. Its the remains of a small bird. There are no open windows and so the only way it could have entered the house would be down the chimney and the poor bugger ended up in the jaws of Four. I cleared up but I can't quite the image out of my head, there were feathers all over the hallway, the kitchen and around the litter tray. I know Four is doing what comes naturally to him, this is the way he lived before deciding that he could do with regular meals and humans to do his bidding.
I didn't want Dad to see any of the evidence but I had to tell him why I was cleaning up the house and hadn't fed the cats or had coffee yet. Dad was realistic about it, not like he hadn't had first hand experience of Four's bird catching skills. So my week of annual leave ends with my Dad packed and ready to head off on holiday to Canada, me a year older and another bird's life ended by one of my cats, other than that its been a quiet week.
