A bad Christmas for cats and cricketers

'An Englishman's home is his castle' is a creed that I was raised on, so I have long viewed a moat and drawbridge as some sort of aspirational ideal. Trudging up the garden path this week, ankle deep in muddy water, wisps of grass breaking through the surface as it wraps around the extremities of my humble semi was not quite what I had in mind. It is hard to recall that only 3 months ago the ground was so dry that the cracks in the lawn were large enough to allow even the most inept English spinner to turn a ball at right angles.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty surreal, even by my standards, and I am not just talking about the appalling weather and the capitulation of the Ashes in Australia. Anyone who has read any of my previous witterings will know that I am less than enthusiastic when it comes to Christmas festivities, life with my current employer is one eternal pantomime so any pretence of merriment has been bludgeoned out of the system long before the first tinkle of sleigh bells.

As someone who often has to force themselves from a perfectly good bed at unearthly hours I took the opportunity of a lie in on Christmas day and awoke naturally at a more respectable hour of 09:30. Hearing my aging limbs being cranked into action my wife bounded into the bedroom to inform me that she, and my stepdaughter had decided to get up early on Christmas morning to open their presents. They are both ‘night owls’ so I know that they will not have come to bed till late. They both also happen to be habitual late risers so for them to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning would require something fairly climactic. Certainly my gifts to them this year were not climactic and maybe I would have felt more empathetic had I been talking to a 5-8 year old, however both my wife and stepdaughter are graduates and I couldn't find it in my heart to break the news to them that there is no Santa Claus. It was the least I could do since they had allowed me to sleep through their nocturnal foray beneath the Christmas tree.

This year being one of the rare occasions when I have not been required to work I chose to use the break to visit friends who I hadn't seen for a while (as opposed to drawing up my imaginary drawbridge). If Christmas Day had been an inauspicious start then the past week became more surreal as it progressed. It would appear that one of my friends has turned her home into a menagerie, with cats and dogs of all shapes and sizes running wild. My wife and I had popped in to say hello and were unaware of the number of animals at the outset. As we sat, drinking coffee and catching up on events I kept seeing these cats flying across my eyeline. For a moment I though something suspicious may have been added to my coffee but soon I realised that it was my host scooping up these creatures from various work surfaces and 'hurling' them to safety. If it wasn't her shooing them away in one direction it was the cats themselves leaping from one surface to another in the opposite direction. I wasn't sure whether I was watching a troupe of Chinese acrobats or a bizarre variation on a dwarf throwing competition. The ease with which the cats were lifted and dispatched in one sweeping movement would suggest that an element of practice had been required though none of the cats seemed remotely phased by the ordeal. Personally it is not something I would want to do or recommend but clearly some of the cats viewed it as a challenge and would head back to the same spot as soon as their feet hit the ground.

The following day I was sitting in the lounge of our bemoated semi trying to come to terms with yet another England batting collapse when the cat that rules the house strutted into the room wearing a bright blue dog coat that would just about fit a Chihuahua, which is about a third the size of an average cat. From his expression it would have been hard for anyone to tell which of us was feeling the more distressed or disillusioned. My enquiries as to the origin of the coat prompted the scornful response that it was his Christmas present, to which I suggested that a set of water wings would have proved more useful. A suggestion that elicited further scorn on account that I had not bought a present for him. And why should I, he isn’t even our cat!

There is no way that I was ever going to win an argument over the cat, nor is there any chance that I will be buying him a matching lead and set of wellies. Fair to say the cat and I co-exist in a spirit of mutual disregard. While the rest of the family may choose to lavish him with affection and inappropriate gifts I keep careful tally of the number of lives he has used.

That he is even in our house is due to the fact that he made a habit of appearing in our midst at odd times having found a way of entering through the small window in our upstairs bathroom. When his owners who lived a few doors away decided to move and abandoned him he decided to move in with us despite my protestations. It is not that I have anything against toothless, old moggies who have clearly done battle with many of the other cats in the neighbourhood, and has the scars and a dickie ticker to prove it, but I don’t think it fair to keep any pet if you are not in a position to look after it properly.

England’s woeful performance was still hurting, time for a consolation mince pie and to remove the offending dog coat. The gummy grin suggested that my gesture was appreciated.

I had an aged aunt who used to stare at me with a toothless grin, didn’t like her much either, though to her credit she didn’t sneak in through the bathroom window unannounced.

During the week we played host to friends of the family who decided to celebrate New Year with us (A brave decision since my personal preference is not to celebrate this occasion, however the rest of the family were still in celebratory mood. The decision to extend this invitation also meant that the 'drawbridge' would be lowered to accommodate a 3 year old child). It is not that I dislike children but on the one occasion that I did go to see 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' on stage I did find myself in the minority cheering on the Child Catcher a bit too enthusiastically.

People keep reminding me that children are our future, this may be true but I choose to think that it may explain why so many people prefer to reflect on the past.

Based on previous experience I would conclude that a 3 year-old is about my intellectual match – we can communicate (to a fashion) without getting in to the realms of awkward questions and generally spend most of the time giggling, even if neither of us know what for.

Perhaps it was a salutary lesson in how time has moved on through the decades. In my days I would probably have ripped all the Christmas wrapping paper to shreds, played with my toys for 5 minutes then spent the rest of the day using the discarded packaging to create my own imaginary world of cars, spacecraft, planes or whatever.

On this occasion, once the novelty of the toys wore off anything was fair game, including the decorations, the food and anything that moved, had a flashing light, made a noise or had a knob to twiddle.

The cat soon realised that not all affection was welcome and chose to make himself scarce whenever possible. After 4 days of torment I was even beginning to feel sorry for the old fella, it can’t be pleasant to be chased around the house by a 3 year-old intent on ‘feeding’ assorted nuts or small sweets into your every orifice.

I put my dislike of children down to the emotional trauma of countless birthday parties in my formative years. Anyone who has hosted a birthday party for a pre-pubescent child will know that it is the equivalent of opening your doors to a herd of stampeding wildebeest and ravenous termites at the same time. Even a 5 year old can work out that ‘Pass the Parcel’ is usually fixed, cut out the pretence of fair play, give the little blighter the prize and go get a life.

Being a shy, quiet child I couldn’t relate to this world of self-inflicted chaos. Stuff your face full of crisps, jelly, and cake, wash it down with lashings of fizzy drink then jump about playing party games until you all turn green from nausea. Should that not be sufficient then there is always 'the bumps' for the party host. In the ultra-safety conscious, politically correct climate they now pervades society it is a wonder it is not obligatory to provide on site paramedic cover.

I should remind you that I was part of the Bri-Nylon generation - 30 of us playing 'ring-a-ring a roses' could generate enough electricity to power 4 houses, 50 and there was a serious risk that one of us would do ourselves a mischief through spontaneous internal combustion.

 
Unless there was a game of football in the offing a glass of milk and being left to read a book would have suited me fine. Why did we always have to dress up for the occasion just so that we could get filthy dirty? If my parents didn’t want to give me ear-ache for getting muddy then they shouldn’t have dressed me in such ridiculous outfits – I wasn’t brought into this world  to be a tailor’s dummy. I have never felt the need to learn how many balloons I could shove up my jumper, how many cream crackers I could fit into my mouth in one go; I have never had a party trick and never indicated any desire to be the centre of attention.

By the time it came for our houseguests to leave England had managed to lose the 4^th Test and the cat had found a reverse gear that enabled him to back into a corner at speed whenever he heard the patter of tiny feet approaching.

England have since managed to lose the 5^th test in spectacular fashion, the water is still lapping around the extremities of the house, panto season has resumed at the office (Oh, yes it has!) and there is more bad weather forecast for the UK.

I am still none the wiser as to how professional cricketers can be selected to play at test level when they don’t even know where there stumps are. It was never a good idea to play 2 test series with only a 3 month break in between. Poor shot selection and a lack of technique has exposed weaknesses that have been evident for some time in the England team. Credit to the Australians for playing the better cricket throughout the series but let’s not get carried away there are very few players in world cricket today who would merit inclusion in an All Time Greatest XI for their country let alone a World XI. 

Trying to look on the bright side anything other than defeat in all 3 group matches by our footballers in this year’s World Cup can be viewed as a national triumph.

I am now contemplating how to pay for Christmas while the rest of the family look at spending more money on Summer holidays. I had been considering bringing my cricket boots out of retirement but then that would be taking surrealism to a new level.