Our cat, Bertie (female) is nearly 9, and weighs 3 kilos (7lbs). She’s very shy, and not at all aggressive to anybody/anything.

But last night, while I was eating my dinner, she started to growl. I looked outside into the garden, and there was a large long-haired ginger tom cat.  About twice Bertie’s size. He’s a regular visitor. He’s very handsome face on, like a lion, but sideways on you can see he’s quite old. I think he wants to be friends with Bertie, but she’s not having any of that nonsense.

Anyway, she growled, then she turned her back on him (her tail wasn’t fluffed up or anything), so he watched for a few seconds then pottered off.

(The pictures of the ginger tom are library pictures, from our wildlife webcam, last month, as you can see from the date stamp!)

Then he smelled the pot where I grow some catnip. Bertie loves it and regularly gets right inside the pot for a little sleep.

My hand is in there for scale!

He kept his back feet on the ground, put both his front paws in the pot, and had a good old headrub and sniff at the catnip. He was actually trying to lie down in it, but only his top half was in the pot.

Eventually, he managed to get all four paws in the pot and curled up, still rubbing and sniffing at it.

By this time I’ve got right up to the window (wishing like billyo I had my phone camera with me) and just watched for ages.

His eyes were almost closed, but he gradually realised he was being watched. He could also tell I was no threat, so instead of jumping up in alarm and running off, he slowly and carefully, with as much dignity as he could muster, got himself standing up, got down from the pot, and strolled off. He was clearly thinking “I’ll just, erm, go, erm, this way . . . and perhaps she won’t think I’m an idiot”.

I laughed and laughed and laughed. As much as is possible with no voice!