Meet the Residents

Got in a bit late tonight by the time I'd given Hoss his goodnight hay. Sat in the car and stuck my wellington-shod feet into a Co-op bag-for-life (they won't want this one back, I can tell you) and then removed my feet from said wellies and put my clean shoes on. Parked bag in passenger footwell with dead torch, power-unit for electric fence and a mousetrap. Finished listening to the Archers by which time all three HKCs (HunterKillerCats, I shan't tell you that again, keep up) were on and off the bonnet of the car, all but pointing at their watches and miaowing that the restaurant should've been open twenty minutes ago.  I escorted them to the restaurant, shovelled food into their bowls and sent them to eat in their various corners.

 HKC3, a ginger ex-tom of indeterminate age and breeding, dines in the ancient stairwell on about the sixth rise. Whoever put the stair carpet down had vile taste  (orange brown and white stripes) but it's extraordinary what a good match HKC3 is for it, he could be related. He is solid and very broad and has been known to bring the catflap into the cottage with him if he is on a panic-escape-run from the Black Bastard next door. (Is one allowed to describe the local Tom in these terms on a BlogPage?)

HKC2 is what I call a purebred Tycoon - a first cross between a Siamese and a Maine Coon - and  he eats in the sitting room.  You don't get tabby carpets with white paws and a bib but if you did, HKC2 would be related to them. He's a tall, fit and sleek fifteen pounder and he has to crouch and crawl through the catflap - he might have got through it elegantly when he was about 3 months old but never since.

HKC1 is the Matriarch, all six ridiculously-fluffy pounds of her. She gets to eat with me in the kitchen because she needs protecting from the other two at mealtimes. There isn't the carpet style made that could call her a relative, but it'd definitely be of the shag*-pile variety if there were.

*She's been neutered, as it happens, so there won't be any of that carry on in this cottage. 

And dear HKC1 is the only cat who can comfortably step up to the catflap and simply nose her way through without any contortions at all. Unfortunately she is capable of taking out a full grown buck rabbit or even a pheasant and it is these trophies that have, in the past, trashed the bloody catflap as she's manhandled them indoors for our dinner.