Friends And Enemies
Posted By Judith on 27th August 2018
Peter and I have had pet cats all our married life. The most we ever had at one time was 5 back in the 1990’s. You can read all about them in the following links. They were Linus, and his sister Grover, followed 3 years later by rescue kittens Dulcie, who was intent on using up all her nine lives and Creamer. Finally there was Jackson who was a local stray tom cat.
During all the time we lived with them I can’t remember any serious fighting. In fact Dulcie worshipped Linus and dogged his every step, but the others just seemed to tolerate each other.
Fast forward 25 years or so and we now have 2 full time residents (Grayson and Poppy) plus 1 local stray tom cat (Macbeth) who gets regular meals and a Siamese with a triangular face who lives a few houses along and visits every day. Trouble is none of them get along with each other.
Grayson loves everybody except Macbeth who he hates with a passion. Poppy is scared of everyone. The Siamese is aloof and Macbeth doesn’t say much at all. He’s the strong silent type.
Consequently meal times can be a bit challenging. I long for it to look something like this
but sadly it doesn’t and I have to do things in the correct order so that no-one misses out and tempers don’t get frayed. Peter says I’ve only myself to blame.
However there is one ‘friendship’ that has surprised me.
Each morning when Macbeth waits for his breakfast he is accompanied by a blackbird who sits on the roof of the porch whilst Macbeth sits in the flower bed.
Once the food arrives the blackbird begins loud non-stop chirruping, obviously encouraging Macbeth to hurry up so he can have a turn. Needless to say Macbeth is unmoved by these protestations even when the blackbird tries to bully him from ground level.
Macbeth’s breakfast tends to start with the previous days left-overs because as we know cats have a very weird kind of logic when it comes to their food
so some days he gets a very large serving.
And so on one such day I gave Macbeth and the blackbird a bowl each.
Will I never learn?!
