Mr Grumpy

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By Mr Grumpy - Thu 1st Mar 2012

 

No, that's not a typo - I did mean Cat theft (with a " t ").

To be frank, this little episode of my past is from when Mrs Grumpy and I were quite new to Spain. The Mrs actually swore me to silence on the whole affair, but I'm figuring that only two or three people will ever read this blog, so our secret is safe. Right ?

About 3 or 4 days before we were due to move out of our rented Villa and into our Finca we were adopted by a stray cat. Now I'm not a cat person (Mainly because I'm neither single, female nor needy*) and much prefer dogs, but nonetheless I found myself warming to it. Mainly because it knew when to keep its distance and not to do the whole 'demanding cat' thing.

(* Ok, so I like to stereotype – get over it )

So 3 days later the cat moved to the Finca with us, but only on the very strict understanding that this would have no impact whatsoever on my desire to get what I believe Biologists call 'a bloody big dog'.

In fact it was more than a desire - I had been working on a part time voluntary basis at a local animal shelter - and being A) The only Man there and B) The only person under the age of 60 and over 6 stone wet through, I was given the job of walking all the 'Devil Dogs', and eventually chose one to keep one a permanent basis.

... You can read that blog Here.

Anyway, the cat moved in and both the cat and dog despised each other with a passion almost immediately.

The cat chose to sleep outside, the dog inside, which for convenience sake was perfect, occasionally knocking on the bedroom window when it was cold or raining, which was fair enough with it being January.

After a couple of days the cat had been absent for longer and longer until we eventually never saw it for days at a time.

So, after one such absence I was surprised when my Mrs turned up from work one day with the cat in her car. She told me she had seen it wandering around the Village where she works, about 8 miles away. She was naturally shocked and surprised to see it in such a dishevelled state and bought a tin of tuna from the shop so she could eventually coax it into her car, where it waited for her to finish work.

She carried it from the car in to the house where, upon my remarking how small the cat looked, she replied that I would too if I had walked 8 Miles in 48 hours without food. Fair point.

So we fed the cat, put it in our bedroom (away from the dog, which was going insane at having the cat in the house) and left it to rest after its marathon ordeal.

Of course, the problem came later that night, during the storm, when there was a 'knocking' at the bedroom window.

Half asleep, the Mrs digs me in the ribs, asking me to 'let the cat in', obviously half-aware that the cat is indeed 'already in'. Or is it ?

So we have an 8 Stone Rhodesian Ridgeback baying for blood outside the bedroom door, OUR cat outside our bedroom window trying to get in (and about to go ballistic when it sees a strange cat in its place) and an Imposter cat who hasn't got a clue what’s going on.

The next morning the Mrs took the cat back to the village up the road and took care to place it in the exact same position that she had kidnapped it from the day before.

Oddly enough the cat is still around (but now wears an identity collar for some reason) and has a tendency to try and climb inside her car whenever it sees her. Maybe it just likes Tuna ?