Bib and Bob swim behind a rock every time I look into their tank

Battle lines are well-established amid the hustle and bustle of Chez Pascoe

It occurred to me the other day that our house is like one huge battleground, with many opposing armies. Okay, the armies are all one-person armies, probably much like Liechtenstein’s, but you know what I mean.

There seems to be a round-robin system of conflict in place, whereby almost everyone and every animal has at least one adversary to attack, and one to fight off.

For instance, let’s start with our giant ex-stray Bodmin. He’s at war with the house’s other two cats. He can’t seem to stop himself chasing the black & white Spooky, but is extremely wary of our haughty-tortie Jojo. Bodmin just can’t work Jojo out at all; how can she possibly have the audacity to snarl, growl and paw-swipe his head when she’s only a third of his size? I think this causes him to reach the mistaken conclusion that there must be something fearsome about her he hasn’t factored in.

Consequently her smallness terrifies him. You could just imagine Bodmin’s memoirs in years to come: Jojo was a bully who constantly be rated me about my size… or despite my size, one of the two. Meanwhile, Jojo’s terrified of Spooky the cat who’s terrified of Bodmin. It’s a perfect ménage a trois – each runs from one cat and chases the other. I can imagine a cartoon version of them all running around in a little circle snapping at each other’s tails.

The situation on the human front is strikingly similar. My wife Lorraine finds my shouty teenage daughter Maya extremely frightening, but in turn Maya finds Lorraine pretty frightening too, particularly around 8pm on a Sunday night when Lorraine asks about her homework. I in turn find them both scary. I’m fairly on edge around Spooky too, to be honest. While none of those three are in the slightest bit scared of me, our two goldfish most certainly are. For no apparent reason, Bib and Bob immediately swim behind a rock every time I look into their tank. I suppose my giant moon-face appearing at anybody’s window would be a bit shocking, but because of this habit I now only have a vague recollection of what they even look like.

Meanwhile, in a rabbit hutch regular readers know well, a feisty female bunny named Billie regularly cuffs the ears of the world’s dumbest rabbit Ted who, being Ted, doesn’t even know it’s happening. In fact, thinking about it, Ted’s the only householder not at war, mainly because he’s only vaguely aware anyone else lives in the house. So, on the basis that war is stupid, does this make Ted hyperintelligent? Just recently, he deliberately jumped on the front of his litter tray, flipping the whole lot over his head. So no, it doesn’t

Speaking of Liechtenstein, did you know it has twice in recent decades been invaded by of all countries, Switzerland… and on neither occasion did anyone in Liechtenstein notice. Though they did belatedly wonder why their forest was on fire.

Chris Pascoe is the author of A Cat Called Birmingham and You Can Take the Cat Out of Slough, and of Your Cat magazine’s column Confessions of a Cat Sitter.