A Cat Called Merlot

Thursday, June 25th, 2020

On Saturday there was an unfamiliar man in my garden! Well, I say unfamiliar but Queenie’s been chatting to him online for several weeks now, for hours…and hours.  She was very excited to meet him as she thinks they have potential. For a while, in the garden, they were observing social distancing but it was only a matter of time I figured, until there was a breach. His name is Pete; he has three grown up children and an ex-wife who never really understood him. He works as an accountant, so that really says it all and he brought Queenie ‘garage flowers’. So, true to his profession, he’s very carefully managing his expenditure. I was sitting under a bush for a good hour, observing and formulating my strategy of how to play things. As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered as he quickly machine-gunned himself in the foot with a comment about meeting women in the flesh and how social media can make people look so “different”. Unfortunately he didn’t stop there and went on to give Queenie a wink (yes a wink), saying it didn’t matter as he liked “curvy women” which I believe is just another way of inferring someone is “overweight”. Social distancing suddenly became en trend again, as she very rapidly showed him to his shiny company car and shoved his cheap bouquet through the window. I take it we won’t be buying a hat!

The Chihuahua at the end of the road describes herself as “Woke”.  She’s always at the gate yapping in a passive-aggressive kind of way that makes reasonable debate impossible. Whilst I have sympathy for some of what she has to say, I feel she sucks the fun out of life and, after an altercation as I attempted to get through her garden without her seeing me, we clashed about dog licences, during which she yapped at me that on the “woke scale” I’m “barely conscious.” Rude!

Mike Jones at Number 5 likes to occasionally dress as a woman. He’s exploring his identity later in life and more publicly. His wife Jackie, has adjusted well to the change but she told her sister on the phone she’s never quite sure who she’s coming home to: Mike in a dress or Mike dressed as the version of Mike she married. Her main bone of contention seems to be he’s suddenly taking up far more wardrobe space than is reasonable. I’ve had a mooch round the house and she has a point. Jackie’s currently busying herself with working her way through the large number of non-binary descriptors available on various search engines but Mike’s told her not to bother, as he doesn’t wish to be pigeon-holed. Jackie’s sister tells her she’s “Lucky she’s got someone sensible to go clothes shopping with and what about that lovely potter who wears those gorgeous dresses and big bows? Perhaps Mike will discover his inner artist?” Jackie snorts and responds that she didn’t think occasionally dressing as a woman and subsequently finding one is gifted, necessarily went hand in hand and, since Mike’s never shown any interest in, or talent for art, he was “hardly likely to get up one morning, grab some clay and knock up a masterpiece!”

This week, as the weather has turned hot, I couldn’t sleep and given it’s light for most of the time, I fancied a bit of nocturnal company. So, every night, I’ve been trying to breach Queenie’s closed bedroom door. She let me in for a while last night, with a caution about “settling down” but it all went badly, as she claimed I fidgeted all night, took up most of the bed and snored. I heard her telling Marcus Briggs it was worse than being married…