Cat antics

Garden groan

Our neighbour three doors down, a retired builder and contractor, is a
man with too much energy and not enough to do.

One day last September he rang my doorbell and informed me he'd cut my
hedge, pointing his shears at a sizeable pile of buxus clippings.

I had been working on an article about an undertaker and the title
Deadly Serious had just been rejected. I had an hour to meet the
deadline. Hedges and infringements of my privacy were far from my
mind.

I ranted and raved a bit but he stood his ground. He - and the other
neighbours, he maintained - should be able to pass my house without
having their clothes come into contact with my leaves. He bestowed the
word Leaves with almost immoral connotations. He might as well have
said Naked Body.

'Do you mind if I get back to work?' I asked. Later I realised I had a
paperclip holding my hair out of my eyes and my feet were bare.

Three days later the doorbell rang as I was negotiating the fee for an
article on the prevailing methods of garbage processing.

'Your cat has been digging up my plants,' he informed me, nodding
towards Wolfgang, grey and stately, sitting on the windowsill willing
one of the birds hopping round the garden to jump through the double
glazing and into his mouth.

I apologized somewhat tersely and promised to make amends. Then he
caught sight of Wolfgang's tabby half-sister, Lupin, weaving through
the front gardens on her rounds. 'I've seen that one in my garden too,'
he snarled.

His garden, that I agreed to inspect for damage, is a soulless patch
with rectangular beds of regimented plants. Some of these Wolfgang had,
indeed, caused to fall out of alignment through his energetic
grubbings.

Later that day I purchased four large bottles of a bright green
substance that ounce for ounce cost the same as Chablis 1er Cru. It was
guaranteed to be a deterrent to domestic pets and showed a cat leaping
away from a plant as if stung. Perhaps he would note it was called Keep
Away! and take the hint.

The following week I saw him, trowel in hand, laying ugly beige ceramic
tiles on his front steps. That'll be nice and slippery come the winter,
I chuckled to myself.

It is now December and the snow is falling like slow white cornflakes.
And there he is, broom in hand, attending to his front path. Then next
door's, then ours...

My next door neighbour, walking towards her car, waves to me. She cocks
her head in his direction and grimaces for my benefit.

Suddenly she bends down and in the snow covering her front path she
draws a huge smiley face.