The one kind of animal I am not so fond of, when gardening, is snails. I am not talking of the good old childhood variety of snails, carrying their houses on their backs, but the big, brown, naked variety. They are very hungry, feeding on my vegetables. They are slimy and yuk. And there are lots of them. But I can’t bring myself to kill them. So, whenever I see one, I put on a glove, collect the snail and throw it over the street into the hedges growing there. Hoping, that they won’t crawl back.
But the other kind of animal I am very fond of. Namely our little cat, Lilly. She is so funny. She loves to lounge for hours on end on my felt-covered office chair. But in the mornings – as right now – I sit on it. So Lilly has to sit on my sweetheart’s chair, if she wants to be in the office with me. This happens only, if it rains outside. When the weather is fine, she prefers to roam the big outdoors. A few days ago, she tricked me out of my seat, though. She got tired of sitting on my sweetheart’s not-so-comfy, leather covered chair, jumped off it and ran to the living room, starting to make odd noises. On hindsight, I’d say, she intended to make me come and check on her. Which I duly did. As soon as I stuck my head into the living room, to see, what the din was about, she started right past me, racing to my chair. Jumping on it with such great speed, that the chair still spun around, when I was back to see what had happened. Lilly beaming up at me from my chair. I’d say, there was pride in her posture. And a little mischievous smirk on her face, too…