The Hairy Games.

I’m speaking for myself here when I say that I have failed utterly to be interested in the Commonwealth Games this year. After overdosing on the Winter Olympics I just don’t have the energy or attention span to watch the almost best athletes in the world compete to see which country has flourished the most since being brutally colonised, horrifically mistreated and then begrudgingly and belatedly allowed independence. By us. That we should not be at the top of the medal table is at least some tiny consolation. I guess these guys must really like the Queen. And I wonder how many Aborigines are responsible for Australia’s overwhelming dominance. Sorry, I meant indigenous Australians.

I’ve watched so little of this year’s games that I can’t even give you the name of one solitary athlete involved. Most of the time it just drifts past me and I get stuck on Gabby and Jessica and Michael over-analysing some bit of footage from 3 days ago. It is not lost on me that even though no Americans are involved in these games we still have to rely on Michael Johnson for decent commentary. Still, we’ve got Steve Cram and Mark Foster. Interesting fact – I’ve met both of them, though I’d trade them as a brace for a Michael Johnson.

Anyway this is a slight distraction from the real purpose of this post which is to update you on fun and games of a slightly hairier nature, the likes of which go on every day in our house. ‘The cat’ is very well indeed, thanks for asking. She has grown a bit since I last mentioned her and she has also decided to stop leaking faeces from her rectum. Of even more gravity is that she is now an outdoor cat. She has mastered the cat flap (when it’s not too much effort) and has successfully explored the immediate exterior environs of our little house. Her big selling point to the local area is that she is as pretty as a peach. The downside is that she’s a bit thick. Or clever enough to fool us into thinking she’s a bit thick.

She is also fearless, which is a worry. She has proved already, despite her still tender age, that she can face down a dog three times her size without much difficulty. She may still be slinky but she has put on a few ounces over the months, nowhere more noticeable than round her neck, which makes her occasionally resemble a darts player. She is fast and agile and is still convinced that no gap is to small for her to get through, though like an overambitious cave diver she will soon find a ‘squeeze’ that might prove her undoing. Her balance however is highly questionable and watching her negotiate the sharp edge of a fence has become an amusing pastime, especially now there are more daylight hours.

I wonder now how ‘the cat’ would get on in the Cat Commonwealth Games, or if we were really trying her out the Cat Olympics. Obviously any gymnastic beam work would be out of the question and she’s far too lazy for any long distance running or endurance events but here’s a few things she might do very well indeed at:

1. Sprinting. She is lightning fast over short distances and able to get from front door to back in just under 1 second (estimated time). Sometimes she moves so fast we begin to think she has an identical twin and that they’re both just taking the piss.
2. Staring. She’s a very good and quite unsettling starer. The way she can then switch to a far away look of utter contempt and superiority is quite astonishing.
3. Coming into the bedroom and lying on your chest with her face half an inch from your chin. She herself would say that this is one of her core skills. Then she suddenly stops purring and you’re in the middle of a horror film.
4. Using skill 3 to yawn a toxic cloud of cat food aroma into your face. Best in class.
5. Using skill 3 to launch a totally unprovoked attack on your face with either tooth or claw. I have lost count of the number of times ‘the wife’ has been bitten on the face, all for the crime of loving ‘the cat’ too much.
6. Manipulating an innocent stroke of her head to justify clinging onto our offending forearm with four armed paws and sinking her pearly whites into our knuckles. Nasty little cow.
7. Bewildering mood swings. Best in show.
8. Lying in some little pit when we are calling for her and not bothering to emerge until she can sense we have both clearly become very stressed.
9. Come to think of it being totally unresponsive to any request or the call of her name. I do wonder if she actually remembers who we are on a day to day basis. I’m not even sure she knows that her name is her name.
10. Being the most gorgeous, soft, cute little pussy cat in the whole world and being able to turn me into a great big woofter (you’re probably not allowed to use that word any more but at least you’ll know exactly what I mean) without doing anything at all.

So, Olympic committee members reading this (hope springs eternal) – if you do decide to set up a feline Olympic games please try to ensure that some or ideally all of the above categories are included. Once this has been set up, with a city chosen and suitable dates, we can then decide if we’d like to enter ‘the cat’ and then we can consult her. I’m betting she won’t give a tiny shit on any level. If anything she’ll probably try and draw blood. Which is why we love her even more.

G B Hewitt. 13.04.2018

Katarina Johnson-Thompson. There, I can remember one after all.