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| Biscuit is supposed to be on inspection duty here, but appears to have seen something much more interesting |
He can't help it, it's his job.
He has a thing for feet - ours - and appears to take great delight in hiding under the bed while we're dressing or undressing only to leap out, grab us by the ankles and go for the toes.
Going to bed and getting up looks more like a fast-forward clip of Riverdance. Just call me Michael Flatfoot.
Aside from having a canny knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - usually under those same feet he takes such delight in terrorising - he has many redeeming features ... and not just the fact that he's a very pretty cat.
Most notably, he loves to be 'helpful'.
His 'help' is often offered for sweeping the floor and dusting - especially when it comes to the sofa in the kitchen. Tying shoelaces is now much more, er ... interesting with Biscuit's 'help', as is filling in forms (of which there are no shortage. Well, this is France after all), using the computer and making the bed where he leaps under the duvet as it is being spread out and then goes mental.
He was obviously a supervisor in a previous existence and that is something he is very keen on doing. We have been informed by our French friends that he has become the 'Unofficial Inspector of Works' - an apparently normal trade for a cat to take up.
In pursuance of this trade, he has taken to sitting on Pen's or my shoulders. He really seems to enjoy that Meerkat view from high above the ground and is happy to sit and watch what I or Pen are doing, offering little mewls of advice here and there as he supervises.
His 'helpful' noises (best described as 'proooooop', occasionally interspersed with short squeaks) were especially loud whilst sealing around the bath recently. I cannot tell you how much easier it was with him peering over my shoulder, offering sage advice in a language I couldn't even begin to understand, whilst I leant at full stretch over the bath. However, as I said, he does like to be 'helpful' and supervise.
I would have thought he'd have been paying more attention in the above picture as at the time, I was sanding down wood filler prior to waxing the door of the airing cupboard and needed to be particularly thorough or it would affect the colour of the wax after application. He'd been particularly vocal on other less important jobs, so his silence in this case was quite a surprise.
It's not just DIY jobs he likes to oversee, but cooking and other general housework too. He often sits on our shoulders as we wash up, make tea or coffee, prepare or cook food and many other tasks. About the only time he becomes otherwise entertained is when the washing machine is running. He seems convinced he can jump through the glass door to get to the washing itself and tries tirelessly to prove it.
We'd hate to tell him the truth and disappoint him.
The downside in Biscuit's apparent need to supervise, is his method for getting up on our shoulders to perform said task. This leaves a little to be desired and can be extremely painful to say the least. It seems that no matter how used to his method of getting to our shoulders we may have thought we were, he still catches us out - regularly.
I was reminded of this the other day while taking a leak. He clawed his way up the backs of my legs, up my posterior and almost pulled my sweats down, leaving deep red lacerations in the process. From there, he scrabbled up my back and on to my shoulder, where he sat, meowing loudly.
Of course I would have liked to have dissuaded him from using me as a human pin cushion at that precise moment, but could only grimace and try to maintain accuracy - not an easy task, I can tell you. I was forced to simply stand, unable to do anything about his impersonation of Sir Edmund Hillary, as my hands were otherwise engaged and my feet needed to stay precisely where they were too, for fairly obvious reasons.
Still, we'd much rather he did that than got up on the worktops and so I suppose, must be grateful for his help and other small mercies ...
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