Aesops modern tales

One of my Mother's favourite tales, whenever she sees my four year old Niece with her finger (or anything else) up or around her nose, was of when I was about five or six years old.

We lived in a very nice house, with a breakfast bar in the kitchen. On one particular day my Mother had come back from shopping and left my sister (who must have been about three or four at the time) and myself in the kitchen with the shopping bags on the floor, including a box of sugar puff cereal.

She must only have been gone for a few minutes, but during this time we had managed to remove and open the box of cereal (a feat in itself which I am still often unable to manage without spilling the contents all over the floor) and positioned ourselves under the breakfast bar. She came in to see us shovelling handfuls of dry sugary goodness into our mouths when disaster struck. I must have inhaled whilst devouring a handful, as a sugar puff became firmly wedged up my left nostril (a particularly unpleasant experience at any age, but which seemed so much worse at that tender age!)

Panic ensued as I was unable to talk due to the tears coursing down my cheeks, and my sister wasn't fully conversant at that stage. As it was a mime that Marcel Marceau would have been proud of we established that a sugar puff had gone where no sugary cereal product should have gone. Probing with items (okay I admit it was mainly my finger) got us nowhere other than pushing it further and further up my nostril. My Father, who was (and still is) a General Medical Practitioner, and who was at his practice received an urgent call to say that his second (and I should imagine somewhat slower) son had managed nasal dilation by confectionary, and asked for advice. I was to be brought over for treatment, a trip of some 10 miles.

My sister and I were bundled into the car, strapped in (still in a lot of pain I have to say!) by a very aggravated and stressed mother. I seem to recall that the journey was fraught with red lights and other road users, and we had made it to about a hundred metres from my father's surgery when I felt the sneeze building, fifty metres and I knew what was coming, and turning into the car park when my mother was hit on the back of her head by a soggy sugar puff.

Of course I was flavour of the month for a while but I think that this story has a deeper message, namely:

"Don’t stick your nose where it's not wanted as the results are rarely very nice......and the resulting journey is often pointless!"

Something slinky this way comes?

I have never really been a cat person, having grown up around dogs. Several ex-girlfriends had cats and I had always tolerated them, but that was the extent of my relationship with the feline species. I think this was pretty much a mutual relationship (other than the typical cat reaction to someone who is wary or unimpressed by them of jumping onto their lap and covering them in loose fur!)

This was until I met The Girl. I was told that she had always had cats and when I first met her, she and her mother had got a new kitten called Mabel. Mabel was very cute, but also quite frankly psychotic, and my gauntlets came into their own just trying to approach her. Unfortunately Mabel went missing, and after several days of searching around the house it was accepted that she probably wasn't coming back. The Girl and her Mother were understandably very upset, and it was decided that there would be no more cats.

This lasted for all of a few weeks when it was discovered that a friend's cat had just had kittens! "We are only going round to look, we definitely won't get one!" Well they were correct, because they came back with two!! (a little ginger boy who was named Fred, and a lovely little black and white girl who was named Ivy [this name lasted about a week before it was changed to Lilly – far more appropriate])

They were so much fun as kittens, and I have to admit that I really became attached to them. And then the BIG BAD BOY made the Girl move out into our own rented property. We weren't allowed pets as part of the lease, and so despite requests I stayed adamant that once we moved to Manchester we would look at getting a cat of our own, but until then Fred and Lilly would just have to come to visit. This they did, and as they grew their personalities developed.

Fred was always a little shy, being bullied by local bigger cats (and having been neutered had no idea why) and he was very friendly. Almost everytime I saw them he would curl up on my lap for a cuddle and fall asleep (much to the annoyance of the Girl!). Having joined one cat search when Fred went missing at about 6 months old days were again spent searching for him, and his disappearance really hit me hard! Thankfully he returned after about 3 days, very scared and much skinnier, but otherwise healthy!

Lilly was always somewhat more adventurous, inquisitive and CRAZY!!! She had to be into everything that was going on. She became an expert chef, dishwasher loader, handyman, electrician, plumber and gas fitter by sitting beside you whilst jobs were being done. She was also the most likely to embed her claws into your thigh for no apparent reason, just because it could be fun to do so.

Since the break-up I have realised how much the Kittens meant to me. I always knew that I liked them, but not quite how much, and I know that I will never see them grow up fully.

So now that I am about to move to Manchester I am looking for your advice! Having had one good reasonable and one fantastic experience with cats do I look to get one of my own? Or as a previous dog person do I look to stick with what I know?

I know that both carry a huge amount of responsibility, time and effort, but wondered what people in "Blogland" thought!