Living With Cats

Kizzie and Snowball

(Noballs and gutless)

Noballs was a male cat, his Sunday go to vets name was Snowball, but after the obligatory snip, his name was changed. He actually answered to Nobes.

OR the electric can opener.

Nobes was a black Tom apart from two toes on each forepaw that were white, and a tiny little area under his chin that was also white. When we got him, he was a juvenile cat, his owner was a student that had finished at university and was moving out of the country so she could not take the cat with her. He had been left to run a little wild and took time to settle down in his new home.

He hated mice.

He ran away from Mice or sat watching them eat his cat food. We actually had to put out mousetraps as the local city mice soon cottoned on to his cowardly ways. He loved spiders though and would chase them whenever he saw them, no matter where they were, or how big they were. All apart from SIR BIGGUN. This was what we called a spider that had taken up residence in a crack in the outside wall. We never saw all of him, or her. Just the front legs.

One day we were sat in the garden, watching the bumblebees bumble about, when one decided it needed to be going towards the house. It did the bump against the wall thing, pulled back moved side to side a bit, then flew a few inches higher, then Bump against the wall.

Repeat.

This carried on until the bee arrived close to SIR BIGGUNS hole in the wall.

Nobes had been following the activities of the bee, watching in fascination as it weaved its way around. He occasionally lifted a paw as if to take a swipe, but decided against it. He settled down to watch.

The Bee arrived, and two legs shot out of the hole in the wall. The bee was pulled struggling into the hole. The bee could be heard buzzing frantically but it soon quietened down. Nobes stared at the wall for a while then decided there was a nice patch of sun, at the other end of the garden that looked good for a snooze. We only ever saw the front legs of Sir Biggun, so we knew he/she was ok.

Nobes never went near that wall again.

The flat we were living in had large spiders, some with bodies an inch long and they could move, fast. Nobes did not care, once he spotted them the chase was on. Shelves, books, mantelpieces, humans, tables, nothing mattered but getting that spider, many is the time my wife would be shouting at him as he caught the spider, “ what the hell, get out!”, the cat just looked at her with that disdain only a cat can project, slightly ruined by the legs sticking out of his mouth as he held the spider before chewing.

Nobes ruled the roost.

He would quite happily walk along the back of the settee, step down, then drape himself across my shoulders to look at the book I was reading or pat me in the mouth until I stroked him.

Then the people in the front flat obtained a female kitten.

This little ball of fluff was let out now and again to do her business outside, much to Nobes disdain, and entertained all of us with her kittenish antics before being brought back inside. Then they had her spayed and made the mistake of letting her out too early.

She ran off.

We spent a few hours looking for her and thought it strange that her owners gave up the hunt before we did. The little tyke would have been scared, and probably lost. But her owners gave up.

We saw her occasionally after that, and tried to coax her in, leaving out cat treats and meat, she would not go near them until we left. Her owners moved out, not bothering about the cat.

We had enough of her being left outside when one day coming back from work we saw her walking down the path catching slugs to eat. Enough. So over the space of two or three weeks, we gradually gained her trust and managed to get her to come into the flat. Nobes was not happy, but wimp that he was he just sat on his shelf and hissed at her a few times. Then even he got used to her.

Kizzie turned in to a real character.

No letting the mice in the house, they were gone in a week, most of them into her belly. Spiders, Nobes AND Gutless now chased them all over the place. More books on the floor, more vases kept in cupboards, more shouting from the wife.

But Gutless had particular hate for Drunks.

I found out about this when I was sat in my local pub, talking to the barman. At the other end of the bar, two regulars were talking about this “bloody cat” that ambushed them. Soon there were more locals discussing this “ bloody animal”.

It all started; apparently, when the new sets of houses were built on the old allotments at the end of the road. these Smallish houses and flats were soon sold or rented to workmen and small families, many of whom used the pub at the end of the street for their evening.

Having had a few drinks, the locals would wind their way home, some more steadily than others. The ones weaving along the pavement found themselves the target of the stealth cat. Kizzie.

She would find a nice dark doorway to hide in, to watch the world go by, preferably one whose house had a hedge in the small front yard, where she would wait until the Drunken person walked near, then timing her jump to perfection she would LEAP up in the air, legs out, fur raised, screeching like a banshee, then run across the road to her next ambush point as the drunk, sometimes scared sober by this point, pulled themselves out of the hedge they had jumped in to with shock.

Apparently, on a good night, Kizzie could get four or five people.

No matter how they varied their route home the locals could not avoid her. There were passageways and ten foots ( a Hull expression for a rear driveway behind terraced houses, usually ten feet wide hence the name), behind the houses that lead from the pub to the housing estate. When Kizzie realized her Prey was using a different path to get home, she moved and changed her tactics. Now instead of sitting in darkened hedges and doorways, she would sit on fences and wait. Leaping out screeching as the unfortunate victim passed garbage bins, or muddy puddles.

Locals were getting quite used to the sound of a screeching cat followed by a crash of bins and a swearing drunk. The locals in the pub consoled each other and started to walk home in groups. Just one small cat had them terrified.

I kept quiet. She kept it up. Thus life settled down, we had Nobes the laid back spider hunter, and gutless the small, slightly shy, drunk hater.