More cat capers, feline felonies, and fur-raising high jinks: a two year Truffle anniversary special

Last Friday marked the two year anniversary of Truffle coming to live with me: I vividly recall the long, foggy car journey from Leicester, during which the little ball of fluff on the passenger seat beside me cheeped all the way to her new home. Two years on, she is fully grown, with battle scars, a loving but feisty nature, and a healthy disregard for the concept of being anyone's pet - the cat equivalent of  'chattel', if you will. Would that be 'cattel' by any chance? One of the 'takeaways' from my recent post on why readers comment on blogs was that more pictures of Truffle would be welcomed. So I thought that as it is nearly a year since I last featured a slew(!) of photos in a post dedicated to my cat's antics, it might be time for another, and the aforementioned anniversary presented an ideal opportunity.

Coincidentally, Truffle (and cats more generally) have been on my mind this week, as I decided to apply to several national pet sitting websites as a carer in the Stafford area - specifically for cats, though I gather the big money is to be made on simultaneously walking the dogs of different owners, rather than visiting a single cat in its home. Be that as it may, cat sitting is my chosen calling, and accordingly I set about creating 'compelling profiles' about myself and my cat caring history, to persuade owners why they should award their cat sitting gig to me. You also had to compile a gallery of photos: these might be of your own cat, or other people's cats you had looked after, or both! One site required me to take a sort of online exam, and answer questions about how I would act in particular scenarios, such as 'the dog you are looking after has been involved in an accident'. The answer to which was either 'not applicable' or prefaced by the statement that I would be recasting this question to refer to cats. (Some of these sites started out by offering dog care only, and have only recently 'grafted on' cats, as it were.)

Here, for example, is my profile on Pawshake:

"I am bonkers about cats, a 'cat person' to the core. I have owned them all my life (insofar as anyone can be said to 'own' a cat - which isn't very far, obviously). My parents got a kitten the week I was born - possibly in case I was a disappointment. ;) The present incumbent is a two year old tabby and white called Truffle, who is extremely adventurous, with a special flair for tree climbing, shed roof leaping, and sabotaging knitting. She is also very loving, and a surprisingly compliant user of her radiator bed, despite its being specifically for that purpose. Some early photos of Truffle are in fact the first hit in Google if you search for 'bonkers kitten'(!). 

As well as my own, I have cared regularly for other people's cats for the past five years, and see cat sitting as an excellent way to get to meet more of these quirky and lovable creatures. I am in my late 50s now, and realistically won't have lived with more than eight cats in a whole lifetime, and even that has required a few 'double ups' along the way. If I pass a cat in the street I always say hello, and am also compiling a portfolio of photos of local cats randomly sitting on walls. If I get up to 12, I might have the makings of a calendar!

I specialise purely in cat sitting, in the form of up to two home visits a day. Job-wise I am a self-employed industrial market researcher, and when I have work it is very flexible and largely home-based, nicely fitting around pet care commitments."

Me with a friend's cat, Hector (early 80s)

If you click on this link, it will take you to my profile on the site, including a gallery of photos. (As if there weren't going to be enough in this post, haha.) The websites take about 20% commission, but look after all the public liability and vetting of clients side of things, giving me as their agent an added layer of security.

But on to what Truffle has been up to, 'up' being the operative word, for she is proving to be the jumpiest cat of any I have ever known, and the most given to perching on high surfaces.

High jinks of the jumping kind

Here she is caught in mid-jump between my garden wall and next door's shed. It has taken me many months of patiently waiting - and experimenting with shutter speeds - to capture the jump itself.

And here is Truffle climbing on top of the kitchen cupboards. She had taken to sitting there last thing at night, prompting me to put her old fleecy bed up there, which hasn't been in use since she was a kitten, when it acted as a (quite unnecessary!) booster seat on the sofa.

And there she is two years on, in her bed but considerably higher up! Please excuse the peeling wallpaper on the kitchen ceiling. That will all be tackled as part of a bigger project to combat damp in several areas at the rear of the house, pending the acquisition of work(!) and funds.

Supervising works

Speaking of my damp problem, another noticeable facet of Truffle's character is her interest in supervising 'works' of any kind undertaken around the house, whether by me or designated tradespeople. Well, I say round the house, but she was also extensively involved in overseeing (quite literally!) the decluttering of the garage, a much-deferred task of Augean stables proportions to which I dedicated a whole post back in the summer. Which reminds me, I have yet to write that post about the perfume memorabilia I found in there!

But firstly, here we are, changing the toilet seat. "You read the instructions, while I sit on the packaging." Cat owners amongst you will recognise this as a variant of 'sitting on important things', in this case an important piece of toilet seat-shaped cardboard I appear to have thoughtlessly discarded on the floor.

And here she is, keeping a watchful eye on the joiner's toolbox. "You won't forget to tidy this lot away afterwards, will you?"

And as billed, below are a couple more shots from the big garage clear out / clean up, which afforded perfect crossover opportunities for 'supervision of works' and 'perching on high surfaces'. Yes, Truffle was quite happy to get 'up and dirty' herself - you can just about make out a cobweb slung between her ears in the first picture.

"Is this really the best spot for the Christmas tree?"

Lying in wait at a major traffic intersection

Another common form taken by Truffle's 'sitting about watching me' is what I can best describe as a kind of 'lying in wait', to see what my next move will be. It is not exactly that Truffle wants to be with me, for it wouldn't take much to find out where I was in the house. No, it's more that she wants to keep me in several lines of sight at once - and where I cannot fail to trip over her.

Sometimes Truffle's curiosity gets the better of her, and she edges that little bit closer to where I am, though still without technically joining me. In the photo below she is heading off my access from the bathroom, a pose which doubles up as 'sitting on important pyjamas'.

And in this one Truffle is ever so slightly in the office, but not quite tipping over into a category I featured last time of 'Keeping my owner in line'.

Her expression is more one of mild interest I would say, rather than disapproval. Though she does still give me some of those looks too!

'Signature folded paw' gesture

The above photo leads me nicely into Truffle's signature paw gesture, in which her right front paw (always this one), is tucked under itself, something I wouldn't have thought was actually all that comfortable.

In this shot, another 'lying in wait outside the bathroom' pose, minus my pyjamas, Truffle is clearly saying: "Hey, I'll be the judge of whether this is comfortable or not!"

Impeding domestic activities

The signature paw pose segues neatly into the category 'impeding domestic activities', chief amongst them being 'impeding bed changing'.

Getting in the way of the weekly duvet change - on either bed - is great sport to Truffle, as it is to Val the Cookie Queen's cat Meeps, and possibly all cats! Truffle likes nothing better than to hide in the snowy folds of the outgoing duvet cover, or sprawl on the freshly laid clean sheet, much like protestors sitting down on a road. Only whereas protestors usually have a cause to which they are trying to draw attention by their blockade, Truffle's determination to sit on bedding seems to be an end in itself.

"Gosh, these are quite deep as fitted sheets go."

This category is of course merely another manifestation of 'Disobedience', which I had in the previous post, but it is such an ongoing issue that I felt it warranted another comprehensive airing. And airing is the perfect introduction to this series of photos of Truffle 'hunting' the old washing line, right as I was in the middle of trying to take it down and replace it.

Here she is, pausing in her savaging of the line for a moment to channel Tommy Cooper.

And now it is back to the serious business of chewing the line, while managing to do a passable impression of a flautist.

And finally, even Truffle has had enough. "Go on, Mum, put the new one up if you want...this one's definitely dead."

No post on impeding domestic activities would be complete without a photo of wool worrying. Check out that glazed look of ecstasy!

This time round I also have a picture for you of Truffle 'chowing on down' on knitting needles. Brand new ones to boot, that had only just arrived in the post as you can see. Perhaps she thought they were chopsticks that needed a bit of 'running in'.

Then, as you won't be surprised to learn, office-related disruption continues unabated. Stationery items, ornaments and perfume vials go missing on a daily basis, only to turn up months later in a terrified huddle under the bookcase or other sturdy and immovable object.

As touched on in the previous post, Truffle has always liked to play with sources of heat - and light - from an early age.

I don't light an open fire in the front room very often, but on the rare occasions I do, pyrotechnician Truffle obviously has to be involved.

The final category of misdemeanour involves unprotected upholstered furniture - Truffle openly flaunts the 'no sitting on pale fabrics' rule in every room in the house where she spies a qualifying chair.

"Any chair you were foolish enough to cover in cream damask deserves everything it gets."

And in case I have given the impression that Truffle is more wilful and disobedient than otherwise, let me redress the balance by adding a picture that shows her still compliantly using her radiator bed, whilst also being suffused in light in a somewhat spectral Close Encounters kind of a way.

Staying with our 'suffused in light' theme, here is fellow blogger Sabine playing with Truffle during her visit on a sunny day last June.

So yes, Truffle is very much a cat who walks by herself, yet who likes to know where I am much of the time. "I've got my eye on you....."