Spring seems to be on the doorstep. The daffodils are in bloom, the forsythia is a magnificent cloud of yellow flowers and green shoots are emerging from the soil everywhere. The rhubarb crowns are poking up like fleshy pink fists in my "fruit corner" and the rose bushes are covered in green leaf buds.
Tinker, the young cat next door, has had his "little operation" and he's out and about as much as possible. He's got quite good at walking along the top of the 6' fence that divides his garden from ours but he can't get down without going to the top corner and using my garden bench as a platform. The dividing fence, however, doesn't quite meet the back fence and there's a gap of about 4". I've planted honeysuckle and Virginian Creeper there so it's well covered but that's where Tinker comes through from his side. That's his entrance to "Narnia". He loves our garden. I have 2 pampas grasses and several leafy shrubs, just right for a cat to dive into. More than all that, though, he loves our cat Maddy.
Maddy does not love Tinker. She is a big cat but she's quite a wimp and she has never stood up to an aggressor. Tinker is no aggressor, he is more of a stalker. If he's in the garden and Maddy appears his ears prick up and his eyes widen. He runs to within a couple of feet of her and she, invariably, makes a half-hearted run at him, bats him with retracted claws, spits at him and squats down with an annoyed look on her face. He squats a few feet away and they sit like a pair of book-ends, silently communing.
He has stopped jumping on her tail. I think even wimpish Maddy made it clear enough that she wasn't having that. He will dance round her, like an agile amateur boxer, and find a leaf or a blade of grass that must be chased but he doesn't, actually, touch her any more. If I go outside and inadvertantly leave the door open he will shoot through it and head straight for Maddy's food dish. She always has some biscuits and water and he will start to crunch the biscuits until I grab him and put him outside. Maddy merely watches him in disgust.
There's another cat, now, that we only see quite late in the evening. It's yet another tabby-and-white and, like Tinker, it seems to be very happy in my garden. Like Tinker, it comes up to the French windows and has a look inside, bold as brass, and it sits on my patio making a threesome. We don't know whose cat it is or where it lives. Now the evenings are getting lighter it's going to be interesting watching the feline behaviour and seeing how the relationships develop.
Tinker, the young cat next door, has had his "little operation" and he's out and about as much as possible. He's got quite good at walking along the top of the 6' fence that divides his garden from ours but he can't get down without going to the top corner and using my garden bench as a platform. The dividing fence, however, doesn't quite meet the back fence and there's a gap of about 4". I've planted honeysuckle and Virginian Creeper there so it's well covered but that's where Tinker comes through from his side. That's his entrance to "Narnia". He loves our garden. I have 2 pampas grasses and several leafy shrubs, just right for a cat to dive into. More than all that, though, he loves our cat Maddy.
Maddy does not love Tinker. She is a big cat but she's quite a wimp and she has never stood up to an aggressor. Tinker is no aggressor, he is more of a stalker. If he's in the garden and Maddy appears his ears prick up and his eyes widen. He runs to within a couple of feet of her and she, invariably, makes a half-hearted run at him, bats him with retracted claws, spits at him and squats down with an annoyed look on her face. He squats a few feet away and they sit like a pair of book-ends, silently communing.
He has stopped jumping on her tail. I think even wimpish Maddy made it clear enough that she wasn't having that. He will dance round her, like an agile amateur boxer, and find a leaf or a blade of grass that must be chased but he doesn't, actually, touch her any more. If I go outside and inadvertantly leave the door open he will shoot through it and head straight for Maddy's food dish. She always has some biscuits and water and he will start to crunch the biscuits until I grab him and put him outside. Maddy merely watches him in disgust.
There's another cat, now, that we only see quite late in the evening. It's yet another tabby-and-white and, like Tinker, it seems to be very happy in my garden. Like Tinker, it comes up to the French windows and has a look inside, bold as brass, and it sits on my patio making a threesome. We don't know whose cat it is or where it lives. Now the evenings are getting lighter it's going to be interesting watching the feline behaviour and seeing how the relationships develop.