Ukulele Cat
OK, so my kitten Sumo can’t play ukulele that well, (I mean, c’mon -she’s a kitten) but during lockdown, I’ve been cooped up with her and the rest of the family and she’s grown a bit bolder. No more fat tail and sideways walk when I unlock my ukulele case. More of a chirrup these days. Opening any kind of box in front of a cat is like showing them another room in the house they didn’t know existed. ‘Ooh, what’s in here?’ thinks Sumo, as I remove my uke, and then straight in there, squeezing herself into the roomier end of her new accommodation.
She-mo
Yes, Sumo is a she and was smaller than a summer roll when she arrived. All we know of her background, is that her human carer was crazy about Japan and her feline Ma was a teenage moggy from Tottenham, who knew how to handle herself on the streets. Sumo, in contrast is a big softie who doesn’t really know what fighting is, despite her name. She’s an only child, or I should say, the only survivor in a litter of two. And having had no siblings to push around, she’d be as confused as you or I, by the very idea of Sumo Wrestling. I’ll stettle for the fact that she’s something of a ginger ninja, if only in dexterity. Ginger cats are almost always Toms, so that makes her special, (in my humble opinion). She’s also a parkour enthusiast, or a freerunner to you and me, even though she’s never tasted freedom. Lockdown happened before we were able to take her to the vets to have her spayed, so currently she can only exercise in our home, rather than on the rooftops of London, where she’d rather be.
We are several vases down, there are morse code dots puncturing every pair of curtains, the chimney had been stuffed with chicken wire and my armchair has been slashed more than the sleeve of an Elizabethan gallant. Oh well, c’est la vie.
