Socks Akers is not happy, he’s not happy at all. The garden is his domain, with designated scratching posts, shady sleeping areas, soupy, slimy water stations which he says he prefers to the clean water available indoors, and of course the al fresco pooing places.
There’s a corner of the garden where Socks will often sit, staring, alert, ears pricked up, whiskers twitching, waiting for Jerry the mouse to come out to play a game of chase. That’s his place, or rather it was until yesterday…
In a rare outbreak of domesticity as the dishwasher was taking a break, I was doing the washing up. As I stared wistfully out of the window, I spotted something scuttling across the garden path. It was Jerry, heading home with a full belly after scoffing the leftovers from the bird feeder. As he reached his country pile, a Socks-like creature shot out of the undergrowth and almost caught him, though Jerry was too quick, he reached home, turned round, blew a raspberry and disappeared. The chasing creature was too quick, too lithe, too…errr….female to be Socks who up until a few seconds before, was pushing out the zeds on his chair in the conservatory. A sixth sense had alerted him that there was Jerry action and he lept to the bifolds and pushed his nose against the glass to see the New Cat on the Block staring right back at him. Goading, daring him to come out from behind the glass.
Socks isn’t daft, well not very, hardly at all really, so he didn’t try to go through the glass, instead, he clattered through the cat flap, hot on the tail of New Cat and they both disappeared over the fence leaving nothing but dust in their wake. Jerry poked his head out of his hole and sniggered.
A few minutes later, Socks returned, with the air of a victor, trotted back through the now open door and tucked into treats, he told me he’d earned them, seeing off trespassers and all. He also reminded me that his other nemesis Flabby Tabby, who had the audacity to come in through the cat flap and fight him in the dining room, had been shown the door, minus a big lump of his fur. I reminded him that we’d installed a new chip recognition flap to stop the flabby one. Then there was Leggy, a long-legged Bengal who stalked Socks through the garden, Socks saw him off. Now New Cat has appeared, brought by our new neighbours. She’s young, she’s sassy and she has her eyes on Jerry, Socks or no Socks.
Socks doesn’t see it that way. At 13 he’s no youngster, but he has belief in himself, sometimes maybe too much. The garden and all its contents are his, he says as he returns to his chair to catch up on the sleep he missed with all that chasing. I won’t tell him New Cat has returned, climbed the apple tree and is watching him. Jerry is watching them both. Summer in the garden is going to be interesting!
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