Dancing with tigers

Judging by the state of the The Cat I Don't Have the growing season is upon us, which is a tad premature given that the Daily Express is promising us another Ice Age and all the musk oxen you can eat at your local MacDonald's. At the moment it is 55% by volume fur, 10% garden debris, 5% exotic fauna and, optimistically, we'd like to think the rest is cat. I'm happy to take it on trust, I'm not going in there no matter how insistent the invitation.

Last weekend we were ripped from our slumbers by the most appalling caterwauling. The Small Object of Desire sat bolt upright, looked at her watch, realised it was not quite yet noon and said things Not Fit For A Sunday. I looked outside and saw that it was cat. She was sitting in the rosemary bush yelling like The Banshee Who Stood On Some Lego at Frankie Howerd, the cat from two doors down. They are not friends. We call him Frankie Howerd partly because he looks like the late Frankie's last Irish but mostly because he has the same vocalisations. It's quite unnerving to be lying there in the footstep hours of the night listening to something outside going: "Oooh... No. I'm down to my last titter." If he ever encounters the collared dove that sounds like Lesley Philips we'll be having Elstree on the doormat asking for royalties.