Arrr Me Hearties

My Dear Princess & Dear Fellows,

Cazza has been taking care of Macca's kids for three days now and it sounds like she is pretty much over it.

"Movies. Send me movies," she texted me yesterday. So I've been dropboxing Marvel and Mission: Impossible over to her, in the hope that this will placate sullen teens.

There is a good reason we decided never to breed. I think that neither of us has the constitution for children. We are quiet, sedentary creatures who like peace. This is why we are perfect cat people. Really the only difference between us and the little hairy fellows is that we lack tails and the ability to leap onto the kitchen top.

Consequently, I find cat-sitting a lot easier. Today I have hung out with the little dudes, watching movies about pirates and derring-do.

(Why is it "derring-do" and not "daring-do? These things upset me.)

We watched the Robert Newton* version of "Treasure Island" which is just fabulous. I just loved his grinning, sweaty performance. Then I put on "The Spanish Main" which I'd never heard of before but was equally fun in its own way, and finally "Sinbad & The Eye of the Tiger" in which Jane Seymour is menaced by Ray Harryhausen special effects.

The cats slept and ate around all three films. And, as you can see, Punky also demanded brushy time during "Sinbad". Look at his happy little face, so delighted.

It was such an effort, I may have had a nap afterward.

And at about 4pm I got a text from Cazza begging me to send her "Black Panther" and "Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows". I've definitely got it easier.

S.

* Another favourite tale from David Niven's "Bring On The Empty Horses" concerns "Bobbie" Newton. Apparently he was in the navy during World War I, and was stationed on a ship that patrolled the channel, looking for German warships.

He was issued with a life-jacket and issued strict instructions. "This flotation device will SAVE YOUR LIFE," he was told in barked orders by an officer. "But in order to do so you must learn to LIVE in it. You sleep in it, you eat in it, you NEVER TAKE IT OFF."

Over the next couple of years, Newton learned to loathe that life-jacket. It wasn't light and inflatable, like the life-jackets we get on aircraft. It was like this BLOCK of chunky rubber. It was hot, and heavy and it made him itch. He developed a rash underneath it, and the only respite was when he showered. Putting it back on again afterward was purgatory.

Then came Armistice Day. On the 11th hour of the 11th day he was told he would finally be able to lose the life-jacket. He described to David Niven how he waited for the moment, then tore joyfully at the straps, unable to get it off his body fast enough. 

When he was finally free of it, he WHIRLED it around his head, CAST it over the rail and watched it fall from the side of the ship.

"It landed square in the waves with a SPLASH," Newton said. "And then I stood there. And then I watched that bastard SINK."

Arrrrrr... there be irony, there be.