The Kitty Letter Chronicles: Spring has sprung - and so have I

Blackbirds - Noisy buggers, aren't they?

There’s a change in the air. A smell of 'green' in it. Fresh buds are poking through the branches on trees I can see from the windowsill. Birds are singing (squawking their heads off, if I’m honest). Skies are clear and the days are longer.

And naturally, as is normal in the feline world, I’m in especially bouncy mood.

Unfortunately, the humans have welcomed spring with slightly less joy.

Whilst I’m doing my Wall of Death act around of the living room walls, wrestling NoisyKids’ socks into submission, chasing sunbeams as they dance on the ceiling or throwing myself face-first at (closed) doors and windows, they’re sitting there with rheumy eyes, blocked nasal passages and an all-round hang-dog look on their faces. Every half an hour or so, DanglyMan’s face explodes at least three times in a row, Big Red makes a noise like a lost baby elephant snorting into a tissue (which she refuses to let me play with) and NoisyKid coughs and wheezes like a broken-down steam organ.

In short, they’re no bloody fun.

They blame something they call “allergies” and it seems to be preventing them from relishing the joys of the season. 

I’ve tried to cheer them up, I rely have. But to no avail.

I try to show them how great all this new life exploding all over the place – yes, even those weird long-legged mosquitoes that have appeared in the corners – by performing my world-famous Jump Jet vertical take-off whenever they walk into the room. I bring them little gifts (or I will once I manage to catch one of those Daddy Long Legs). I stretch out alluringly in the patch of bright sunlight threatening to fade the bedroom carpet.

But nothing works. My efforts are met with cries of “Bloody nutter!”, “Euw, gross, Joker!” and “Get outter my way, cat”, as they stumble half-blind towards the next box of tissues that they seem to go through at this time of the year as the same rate that I get through sachets of Whiskas.

What’s a cat to do? Here I am alone, surrounded by misery-merchants and isolated from my own kind. OK, so I’ve never actually MET another cat seeing as my humans were the ones who got the privilege of weaning me, washing me and wiping my elegant behind before I got sick of their clumsy efforts and took over the job myself. But I have seen the neighbourhood cats from the windowsill as I survey the world from our first floor flat. Frankly, honest I’m not that impressed. Most of them look like rather a rough lot, in good of a good all-over licking, and certainly not the kind of creature someone of my caliber should mix with. Well, all except that cute little tabby who sits teasingly on the back wall of an afternoon – but that’s another story, and if I’m honest, I really haven’t worked out how I feel about that quite yet….

….but I digress. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the joys of spring and the fact that my humans are being miserable so-and-sos in response to it.

I don’t know, anyone would think they prefer the cold, dark, wet days of winter to the general wakey-uppiness that late March has brought. No pleasing some folk, I suppose.

So, until they get over their (waggles paws on either side of head to indicate ‘so-called’) allergies, I suppose I’ll just have to occupy myself with plans on how to capture that wretched blackbird that wakes me up every afternoon with his infernal twittering (“how rude!”).

And then there’s always the tabby who might be charmed by an elegant pie-bald prince sitting in the window. Now, if I can just work out how to get from here…   to there.