Cat Burgers

Is what we're going to be eating if Theodore/Theo/Teddy/Teddy Bear doesn't shut his yap!

Allow me to explain. Miss P and I found out on Friday that our estate agent will let us keep a cat. Goody! (They can't organise a key to our garage or issue me with rent receipts, but they can approve a cat.) On Saturday morning we went cat shopping and were instantly smitten with the small, mocha-coloured Burmese we found asleep on an office chair of the vet at Paddington. He looked up at us with round, soulful eyes and promptly flopped himself on his back so we could tickle his tummy. Aww. So we took him home. This is, however, perhaps the loudest cat ever conceived. He only has one miaow - RAOW! - and he uses it A LOT. Constantly, in fact.

So far, we have discovered that RAOW! means:
- Pick me up!
- Put me down!
- Where are you going?
- Where have you been?
- I'm hungry.
- No, not those biscuits.
- Tickle me.
- I want that chair.
- Where is everybody?
And, most of all...
- I WANT OUT!

He sounds like a small, persistent fire engine. He sounds like he's having his leg hacked off with a rusty saw. He sounds like a baby howling. He sounds like a baby who's been run over by a fire engine having its leg hacked off with a rusty saw. We keep waiting for our neighbours to ring the Child Protection Agency. At 2am on Sunday, bleary-eyed and cranky, we shut him in the laundry.

Now, this is one affectionate cat - he knocks Pixel (the Thatcher of all catkind) for six in demands for cuddles. (Hence 'Teddy Bear'.) And, really, he just wants to go outside and play - but he can't until his microchip is registered (techno-mog!) and his name-tag arrives, and until then he's going to throw wobblies. I've just got home from work at nearly midnight and tiptoed through the house, foresaking even my bedtime cup of tea lest I rouse the klaxon downstairs. I could almost kiss my goldfish - lovely, QUIET creatures : )