Take your cat to work week

[first posted 25th April]

Like most cats, Joe has favourite places to sleep. There's the laundry basket, for instance. He jumps into it neatly, then tips it over and rolls it around the floor from inside. When he's found the right position, he curls up and sleeps.

He has a special blanket at the foot of my bed, but he likes sleeping on my pillow too. Sometimes he chooses my son's pillow or, since my son had his hair cut, my son's head. Perhaps he thinks my son's head needs to be kept warm.

But when he's not sleeping, Joe is a lively, inquisitive cat who sits at windows, watching the world. He likes to hunt too and has recently brought in a mouse and a bird. There's a bell on his collar which rattles against his name-tag, so I hope he's not too successful a predator. I think his favourite food is still Sainsbury's cat biscuits, closely followed by Whiskas.

Lately Joe has taken to following people who leave the house. He's fond of human company and the Spring fills him with enthusiasm for the outside. Today he bounded beside me as I set off for work and wouldn't go back. We were two streets from home when I scooped him under my arm and carried him back. He moulted ginger fluff all over my jumper, and squirmed with vigour. "It's take your cat to work week," he insisted him. There was birdsong in the air. As I tried to hold him firmly, Joe did his best to indicate that I should join him in climbing trees and hunting.

Perhaps he thinks, when I go to work, I'm hunting cat biscuits. After all, I sometimes bring them home.