A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Thursday March 11th 2021

On Monday children finally went back to school after months of being at home. The sound of front doors slamming and locks being changed was really quite deafening.  

On Saturday afternoon I looked out of the sitting room window and saw a fox sitting on the top of my shed, enjoying the sunshine, bold as you like. I shot through the cat flap to tell him to leave immediately but he just yawned and looked down at me. 

  “Er, you appear to be in my garden, on my shed, mate.” I said, very calmly.

  “And?” He said with a shrug. 

  “Your’e trespassing!”

  “I’m a fox. I don’t believe in property ownership. It’s bourgeois. In my world those boundaries don’t exist.” 

  “Well,” I retorted, “In my world we do!”

  “That’s because as a domestic cat, you’ve chosen to conform to human values, because it’s easy. When you live off grid, it’s a whole different matter.”

  “How would you like it if you went home and found me in your den?”

  “Good luck to you if you can put up with all the noisy cubs and the wife banging on about upsizing to a four bed den and moving to the edge of the park where you get a better class of fox. That’s why I’m on this shed. I’m trying to get a bit of peace and quiet.”

  “Look, I think I’ve been very reasonable.” I could feel myself getting a bit hot round the whiskers and my tail was expanding which was a sure sign I was getting cross.

  “What are you going to do if I refuse to leave?” Said the fox, with raised eyebrow.

  “I’m going in to have a lie down and consider my options!” It was a bit daft  but it was all I could think of to say before I stomped off, to the sound of him laughing. What with him and the squirrels, the whole garden’s spiralling out of control! 

When I went back indoors, I found Queenie pacing around, nearly tearing her newly dyed hair out whilst on the phone to a call centre about the internet connection. I could tell things were bad as her face had gone very pink and she was gesticulating at nothing in particular. The call was on loudspeaker and during the nearly fifty minute duration, the man at the call centre repeatedly put her ‘on hold’ to speak to his supervisor. Making matters worse, he kept asking her how she was each time he came back on and reiterating what a pleasure it was for him to be assisting her today. When she finished the call, she made straight for the Gypsy Creams and a treat for me and we lay together on the sofa watching Ben Fogle’s New Lives In The Wild. I think we both agreed that living ‘off grid’ and eating road kill was looking increasingly attractive.

On Saturday, Marjorie and I wandered down to the sea front to watch the fisherman and get a mice cream. As the weather was really lovely, it felt like a mini-break. While we were down there, we noticed lots of people sitting together on benches with coffees. I think they were practicing for when the Government’s ‘Road Map Out Of Lockdown’ allows them to sit together on benches and drink coffee? Gary from Number 11 said he wasn’t surprised people aren’t adhering strictly to the rules as lots of people just can’t read road maps.