The crackling of cellophane wrappers being opened was the first I heard of it. Both Buffy and I pricked up our ears, as cats do at any old odd noise. The Doberman pup Dingo stayed sounders in her big basket as we both sauntered through to the lounge. There stood our keeper, removing two cat collars from the packets. Hmm I thought, someone's been up to " Fur Fin and Feather" again.

" Ahh there you are you two " keeper smiled . . " nice timing ". He crouched down, holding the two collars and it was then that we noticed. . . .
" tinkle tinkle tinkle " went the two attached cute wee sleigh bells. This engaged Buffy's curiosity and she wandered up to keeper and sniffed the new leather of the collar. Keeper siezed the opportunity and swiftly buckled the strap around her sweet throat. Buffy pranced away, all a Tinkerbell ring tones.

I wasn't too keen on this.

" Come Cathead", keeper half spoke/ half whispered, shaking the bell'd collar and with a "psss psss" and snapping fingers, " come get your new pressie".

Ah well I thought, I may as well play along with his silly game. Can't say I was ever enthralled by the idea of wearing a stupid cat bell around me for heavens sake. I'm not some Swiss cow in an Alpine meadow ~so what's the big deal?

I pawed up to him in resignation, offering my neck for the collar. And hey presto, it's the amazing new jingle bells Cathead! Great. It was a metallic blue bell, to match the collar. Buffy's was pink and she did look great with it actually, her feline femininity enhanced. But the macho Cathead? Don't think so. I'm not some pampered inbred house cat, I'm an adventurous mongrel-moggie fresh air fiend.
Cat bell Cathead? Don't put me on.

My big mistake was to choose as my first belled-up excursion, a sorte over to Bloater Chop's manse, the first time I'd ventured there since seeing him en-flagrante with a rusty bed and some house flies back in May. This time I circled around the front to have a look in his living quarters. As luck would have it, BC had finished his cellar work-outs and was crashed out, laying sprawled half on & half hanging off a prehistoric collapsed setee in his grubby lounge.

I was stationed in his front weed farm, amongst some dog daisies, gazing in through the pane of a window a quarter opened on a toilet flush-dirty sash cord, the glass rendered semi-opaque by a donky's years build-up of layers of industrial and vehicle pollutants and internal dust and grime ~and god knows what from the blubber-bound occupant himself. Compounded by an obvious absence of window cleaner-attention over the past 30 years.

The lounge was quite spacious, with a high artexed ceiling, the corners covered in dark motes. It was sparsely furnished, with just the skip-ready settee loaded with the bulk of BC, who was watching television whilst munching away on some Wotsits. Crumbs cascaded down over the barrel belly and onto the floor, where stood at arm's length a half-drunk 2 litre plastic bottle of Diet Coke. The television was a beat-up little black and white 14- inch with a twisted metal coat hanger sticking out. It sat on two old milk crates piled in the middle of the room on a threadbare food-encrusted rug. One single unshaded bulb hung from the ceiling on a long flex.

This time the fashion guru was clad in max-expanded elasticated Adidas tracksuit
bottoms and a red charity shop XXXXXL T shirt with a worn slogan " I choked Linda Lovelace" emblazened across. The T shirt had been sissored on one side up to within 2 inches of the armpits to accomodate the titanic BC berth, so an ample amount of a white flesh lava flow of flab flopped out to one side. The few days of unshaven facial hair and tangled sweaty dark rug on top remained consistent from my previous visit.

Bloater C took a giant swig from the coke bottle and, remarkably sprightly-like, rolled off the couch whilst propping himself with one log of an arm on one end and grunted up onto his feet all in one movement . 30 stone of body up in one. My cat eyes widened, unblinkingly. Impressive! Now where was he going. He thumped and waddled along the lounge foor, bowing the creaking boards as he went, arms forced outwards by his bulk. He opened a rickety door through into the hallway and struggled into the gloom; returning after a minute swinging something from his right hand. I zoomed in -and blinked. For there, in his wide fat grasp were the two hind legs of the grey feral who had attacked Abigail, my next-door neighbour's beloved pet only a few weeks ago. The ragged long-haired grey was hanging upside down and BC began to swing him like a feline pendulum across the room whilst flexing his giant legs in tandem as if doing some kind of grotesque dance routine. For a horrible second I thought the cat was dead, but no, he was actually relaxed and seemed to be quite enjoying the ride, front legs outstretched. Obviously this had been part of BC's routine with the cat for some time. I assumed the scraggy feral was his pet.

" There we go Kevin " said BC, swinging the cat even higher "you love it; you absoloutely love it"
The scraggle started meeeowing contentedly as he swung upside down in midair.. . ." I don't know", said Bloater Chops, as if reciting lines in a play, " there's just no room to swing a cat in here". He then proceeded to break into song. . .
" Oh would you like to swing on a star,
Carry moonbeams home in a jar,
Or are you better off as you are,
Or would you rather be a pig?

A pig is an animal with dirt on his face
. . . ."

BC stopped himself short in some uncomfortable realization, then piped up again with some other durge from the distant past.

Well this bizarre ritual continued for a good ten minutes until BC let the critter down on the floor where " Kevin" sauntered off back into the hallway again as if nothing had happened and BC did a kind of reverse replay of his up movement, back down across the collapsed couch and continued to watch his black and white snooker.
"And for those of you watching in black and white, the pink is just behind the yellow" droned the commentator.
" Ah Ha ", grunted BC. He scrunched up the snack packet and tossed it behind him over the couch to join the other interesting assortment of bits & pieces of discardation that had laid scattered across the floor since time immemorial.

Weird city! Isolation definitely has a distorting effect on the single human male mind.

The smell of summer grasses, herbs, pollens and weeds were having a soothing effect on my cat head and I decided after chewing on some sweet blades of fresh grass to have a little cat-nap whilst basking in the warm sun & shade - maybe crunch on a nice shiny beetle or earwig or two - before going home. On awakening I arched my black cat back and s t r e t c h e d my front legs out and commenced to mongoose-jump through & over the tall weeds and wild roses to reach the fence of our back garden. I had bounded three or four leaps before I realized my mistake. The bell, the bloody >>bell! It jingled away merrily as I jumped and the sound must have carried as far as BCs cat-flapped kitchen door because. . .

At the end of his garden, at my jumping-off point onto the fence back home, loomed the substantial bulk of BC's long-haired grey feral, now fully recovered from any vertigo and giving a good impression of a steam train standing in a station. Hssssssss.

Before I could take in the shock, Kevin was on me, swiping and scrabbling away with his sturdy front feet and dirty sharp claws, just as he had done to the trapped Abigail. He was very strong. My cat eyes were full of grey blur with the odd quick glimpse of snarl and general nastiness. Cat screech abounded as we quick-time rolled and scrapped about in the brambles and nettles. He was saying, in his way, "you're on my f...ing patch Cathead, now pay the price". Ouch, that HURT. Biting, scratching, onto my nose and ears. I had to respond quickly. The shock triggered my human DNA-implanted brain into overdrive. My perception shifted and I began to fight back. . . .

I'll recount the rest of this little episode in my next. Must rush from the keyboard -keeper has just turned key in the front door.

see ya.
CATHEAD