Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
One of Chris’s cat-sitting clients is skilled at turning up in unexpected places …
My cat-sitting duties often take me into an extremely salubrious gated estate frequented by equally salubrious cats.
There’s the most elegant pair of Somali sisters you could ever hope to meet, living in luxury, the (typically ungrateful) owners of heated beds with satin cushions.
Just around the corner lives an immaculately groomed and incredibly handsome Siamese boy named Tobias, and a couple of bends further on you’ll find an aloof Russian Blue named Misha.
Somehow, all of these beautiful cats seem to “belong” on this millionaire’s row.
And then there’s Charlie. Amongst all this feline finery lives a scruffy one-eyed rogue of a black tomcat named Charlie Wilson.
It was Charlie who first got me into this gated paradise – not by showing me the best way over the fence, you understand, but because his owners were the first to book my services.
Since then, I’ve taken on the care of all the above cats, and while none of them socialise with each other, they’re all well aware of Charlie. This is hardly surprising as, even when I’m not actually visiting Charlie, I end up… visiting Charlie.
On my first visit to the Somali sisters, for instance, who should I find lying flat out on one of those heated satin beds? And who is it that regularly breaks into Tobias’s timer-feeder, and snuggles up with a certain Russian lady?
Yep, Charlie; he’s everywhere – if there’s an accessible catflap or an open window, he’s through it.
This week, however, I arrived at my latest assignment on the estate – looking after a Burmese named Whisper, knowing that this was one cat who’d definitely be keeping all her food for herself.
Not only was Whisper’s food behind a state-of-the-art microchip catflap, her garden was protected by an elaborate system of wall-top netting, expertly angled to keep Whisper in and others out.
Not even expert cat-burglar Charlie was getting into this place!
On my third day visiting, having fed and brushed the delightfully vocal Whisper, we both headed out into the garden. I surveyed the Colditz netting atop the walls while Whisper settled down to chew some grass and rip up a couple of flowers.
I sat with Whisper for 10 minutes or so, and then, out of nowhere, a black cat landed with a huge thump in the middle of the lawn.
I stared aghast, first at the familiar one-eyed face watching me, and then up at a tall tree in the neighbouring garden. What a jump!
Before I could form the words “Charlie Wilson, what on earth –” he was past me, skidding through my legs to the open back door. He was in.
I looked at Whisper, she looked at me. She went back to eating grass, I trudged off to perform the familiar act of removing Charlie’s face from someone else’s food bowl.
Politely, of course, and with the offer of appeasing biscuits, because I know that very soon his owners will be on holiday. And from that day on, Charlie Wilson will be my boss.
Out of nowhere a black cat landed with a huge thump