Have I ever told you about Cilla the black cat and her special garden spot?
Cilla, our neighbour’s black cat, spends loads of time in our garden sitting in one particular spot and staring at the fence. She does this for hours every day.
Now, Cilla is a skittish cat so we’ve never pet her, but we always say hello and give her slow-blink smiles, and she smiles back. We feel very fondly about her and I think she knows we’re friendly.
Well, yesterday, one of our local foxes, Scraggle, decided to take a nap in our garden.
And he chose a particular spot.
Cilla’s particular spot.
Cilla arrived moments later and stood nearby, aghast. Scraggle glanced at her and then went back to sleep. Basically: ‘Hi Cilla, this is my spot now.’
And Cilla turned around and stared at me and Joh through the window (which she never does), with enormous, pleading eyes: the saddest cat in the world. I want to be clear: she wasn’t afraid of Scraggle. She was honestly sitting pretty near him. But she was certainly afraid of losing her spot.
She stared at us.
And kept staring at us.
I said, ‘She wants us to move Scraggle.’
Joh agreed. He didn’t want to do anything to actually scare Scraggle away, but also…it was Cilla’s spot and she was so clearly upset.
‘Just open the door,’ I said. ‘That’ll be enough.’
So…Joh opened the back door, and Scraggle left.
Cilla took back her spot and settled down very comfortably for another two hours of staring at the fence.
And that’s how Joh helped Cilla get her spot back.
The End.