@garius@mastodon.me.uk
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

garius

@garius@mastodon.me.uk

Author of The Brexit Tapes. Historian. Strategy streamer. Tech/Transport Strategist. Editor of @lonrec. Orient fan. Made Neil Gaiman cry (in a good way). Business: business@longformist.co.uk

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

garius, to random
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

"It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: "Kings. What a good idea." Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees." - PTerry

garius, to random
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

"Well I didn't vote for you."

garius, to random
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

After a long day of work, time to begin my second job as a cat rest

garius, to random
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

A worthy cause. Charity helping cats in Ukraine.

https://feline.foundation

And on here as @felinefnd

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

The Irish Times had this to say:

"Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who's really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it's like having a neighbour who's really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown."

My take:

My landlord is a clown and I can't afford to move out.

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@cstross for me it's more:

the landlord is a clown, but apparently there's some ancient law against me owning the house instead of him.

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@cstross Like, It's my house in all but name. I have to pay for the maintenance and upkeep. I have to do all the cooking and cleaning.

But for some reason this clown gets to live in the attic and walk around it in full clown gear whenever he wants.

And I have to pay for it when he does, despite the fact that he makes a fortune off selling vegetables from my garden.

garius, to animals
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Realised I've never shared Napoleon the feral kitty's story here, so here we go.

This is Napoleon, and this is the story of his nine-month journey from a hungry, desperate feral street cat to snuggly duvet monster. /1 🧵

kitty happily curled up in the nook of my arm on a bed.

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

The problem: she was UTTERLY TERRIFIED of people. Whilst this suggested she was a full feral, and had probably been born wild, it also meant she ran at any approach.

But eventually, as she got even thinner and saw us giving the odd snack to Not My Cat, she clearly reached a point where she decided she needed to be brave and trust someone.

She came closer.

She asked for food. /5

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

I really, really can't overstate how suspicious Also Not My Cat was of people.

Again, we're not in the habit of feeding random cats (and you shouldn't be either) but she was so thin, and hungry that we put a plate down for her with a bit of tuna on it.

She came back.

By then we had some young-cat-friendly biscuit. /6

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Over the next few months, we managed to persuade her to properly cross the threshold into the house (just about) to get food. This also meant we could chip scan her (Cats Protection lent us a scanner) and get posters up in the area. The lack of response confirmed she wasn't owned. /7

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Eventually, the lure of dreamies was even enough to tempt her to approach and eat from our hands.

The first time Also Not My Cat had dreamies she began purring...

...and immediately jumped about 2ft in the air and ran away.

She scared herself by purring. I think it was the first time she'd ever done it.

I don't mind saying that made me cry /8

video/mp4

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

As winter approached, we became increasingly worried about her. Ferals have a life expectancy of barely two years it's tough out there.

I put a cardboard box with one of my hoodies in it next to the door and eventually, as long as we left the door open a bit and stayed right on the other side of the room, she'd sit in it. /9

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Cats Protection said they'd help us trap her, but she was still too wary to let us get close, and WAY too fast to grab.

But the weather was turning fast. So we gambled on buying her a little kennel which we put in the garden with lots of straw in it for warmth.

When she started using it, we were so happy and relieved. /10

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Every night she would sleep in the kennel, eating twice a day. We talked with Cats Protection about trapping her so they could shelter and hopefully rehome, but it didn't seem likely any time soon.

But then in January 2022 she started limping. We had to act.

With effort, we managed to get her to start eating food from within a trap when she came in. Eventually, we triggered it

She looked so betrayed. But it meant they could get her to a vet. We agreed to foster her in our spare room after /11

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

I say "with effort" because Not My Cat was not one to pass up free food.

We caught HIM about five times before we managed to catch her. Each time he looked at up at us from within the cage, afterwards, with a look that said:

"I REGRET NOTHING". 😆 /12

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

A big revelation from the vet trip was that 'she' was actually a 'he'! Just a very tiny, underdeveloped and malnourished one. Probably only a year old.

I won't lie: fostering Also Not My Cat after the vet trip was REALLY hard.

There was pooping until he worked out the soil tray.

There was hiding under the bed.

There was a LOT of cardboard tearing and mess. /13

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

And A LOT of meowing. Betrayed meowing. "Why won't you let me out?!" meowing. Escape attempts. And still so much worry about people.

We would take turns just sitting in the room and talking to him, to try and normalise our presence.

I would sit in there on the bed for a few hours each day and read history books to him, out loud. /14

video/mp4

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

He would sit on the record player across the room, watching us. And then, one day, as I was reading to him, something wonderful happened.

He just slept.

Not "wake up every hour" sleep. Proper, total, sparko for about eight hours solid.

I think it was the first proper sleep he'd ever had. /15

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

And from that moment on, it was like a switch had flipped in him. It was still a slow journey, but every day he became braver and braver.

Eventually he discovered strokes. And scritches. And naps. He decided he liked strokes and scritches and naps.

Particularly when he discovered how soft the fluffy grey blanket we used in the room was. /16

black kitty with white patches snoozing fitfully on top of a fluffy grey blanket, paws out, next to me on the bed.

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Cats Protection had asked us to keep him in for AT LEAST two weeks after neutering, ideally more, before releasing him as there just wasn't a permanent home available.

Once he finally mastered the litter tray, we decided to let him roam the house at least.

And that's when he jumped on the bed in our room and discovered...

...duvets. /17

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

You cannot understand the mix of joy and heartbreak of watching a cat who has spent his whole life without soft places to sleep discovering duvets.

He loves duvets.

He is a duvet dragon. Duvets are his GOD. /18

kitty snuggled down into duvet, happily.

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

And then, one day, as I was lying in bed myself, he jumped up on it, cautiously approached me, and then snuggled right up into my side. /19

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

And so we decided that while we had no plans to have a cat, it probably wasn't fair to let him out during the cold weather still.

So it was best to keep him inside for a while, even though he still really wanted to go outside again.

Meanwhile he kept doing stuff like this.

Stupid floof. /20

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

But he still wanted to go out. Really badly. So eventually, we knew we had to let him go. At least he was neutered now, had his vaccines and was chipped to Cats Protection

As spring arrived, we opened the patio door. He took a quick look back, and then darted away over the fence.

We thought that was the last we'd see of him. Thinking maybe, at best, he'd hang around in his little kennel again and pop in for food.

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

We left the patio door open though. Because by that point both my wife and I had admitted we'd quite like it if he came back.

But we'd decided it had to be up to him.

That done, I went upstairs for a nap.

And then, about two hours later, I was woken by the feeling of something trying to snuggle up between my arm and my side... /22

garius,
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

And so at that point I basically had to accept I was now a Cat Dad.

We spoke to Cats Protection again. And did the adoption process/paperwork.

And, at my wife's suggestion, he finally got a name.

Napoleon.

And he has been a permanent, very snuggly, and occasionally troublesome member of our household ever since.

Which is why my Mastodon output involves a lot of cat photos as much as writing/history. Sorry about that. 😆 /END

Black kitty curled up on my desk, head leaning against my keyboard.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • GTA5RPClips
  • DreamBathrooms
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • khanakhh
  • Youngstown
  • ngwrru68w68
  • slotface
  • everett
  • rosin
  • thenastyranch
  • kavyap
  • tacticalgear
  • megavids
  • cisconetworking
  • normalnudes
  • osvaldo12
  • ethstaker
  • mdbf
  • modclub
  • Durango
  • tester
  • provamag3
  • cubers
  • Leos
  • anitta
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •