Now that we are over our steaming summer here in the UK and moved on to a fairly warm autumn, we can tell that the season has changed just by the cats and their behaviour.

First hint is that instead of disappearing all day into the garden and cool shady hedges, they are now impatiently paw-tapping when we get up in the morning for the bed to be made and the coverlet pulled over so that they can get up assume the day-time position of deep snooze. There can be quite a power struggle some mornings if I choose to shower first and then either have to wrestle a feline, or two, off the bed first, or take the easy way out and make it round them, and sort of slip everything in place like a double-whammy furry version of a hospital bed bath.

We really need not worry about watching the forecasters to find out if it's raining, we have cats that come in and hurl their cold, wet furry bodies at our legs. This can be quite a shock to the system when you are sitting quietly having a cup of tea and doing the crossword. Or worse, dozing on the settee. A wet cat on the chest can waken the deepest snoozer.

I have started to wonder if cats have any sense of time. Not in a passing seasons sense, but in a wristwatch -"Oops, is it that time already" - sense. For example, when I come back from shopping I park my car in my husband's place in the drive beside the house - the nearer to unpack the bags, and Sparky will come rushing up giving little mews of greetings etc, although it does usually sound slightly as if she's complaining about something not being quite to her satisfaction somewhere or other. Then, when I've unpacked and reversed out to park out front, she comes rushing up again and gives me the same stream of complaint and greeting. Sometimes she even leaps up on to the car and harangues me through the windscreen all over again. Now, I wonder, does she think I've just arrived, and is she telling me that someone just like me was parked in the drive just a moment ago? Or does she know it was me and is she demanding to know what the blazes I'm up to?

When the cats are upstairs on the bed - what makes them come downstairs and then just re-settle themselves on the sofa or just stretch out on the carpet? Is it hunger, or change of light, or a sudden noise, or 'Hmmm - maybe I'll see what they're doing down there' or 'Gosh, I feel like a bit of carpet under my ear….'. Or just - 'If I stare long enough someone will open me a tin…'

Another question occurs when the Fat Girlie comes in at night and just sits right beside my husband's right foot and then stares fixedly at him until he catches her eye. It can't be for food, because she surely knows by now that he's unlikely to get up and go to the kitchen just like that. But when he inevitably does catch her eye - only then does she immediately fling herself on her back, wave her legs and arms in the air and gaze winningly at him over her shoulder. What is she thinking? What is it for? My husband believes that it's just total admiration for his manly charms. Right. I am inclined to think that she's just trying to lure him out of the chair so that she can get up on it, as it's where she often settles for the night. Whatever the ploy is, it never works, but she still does it almost every night. Is it a new idea each time, or does she think that she's going to wear him down, or maybe just strike lucky one time. Maybe it's a process of power playing.

Then she will have him trained - she thinks. Maybe.

© Thelma Mitchell 2003