It’s only my deficiency as a photographer (and George’s desire to play with the camera) that prevents me furnishing you with further proof. I’ll keep trying!

George and the Monsters

George only ever goes out of the back door, and has never – unlike any other cat we’ve had, or any other cat in the neighbourhood – found his way round to the front, because the front of the house is where the Monsters live, and George doesn’t want to go there. We have an electronic doorbell – the kind that goes ‘ding-dong’. We’ve had it since before George made his appearance, but from day one he has been frightened by it, because he knows that Monsters ring the doorbell. When it rings, he races into the conservatory and jumps on to a chair under the dining table. Once there, he’s fine, because that’s where the Monsters can’t get him.

Sometimes, however, the Monsters are allowed in. If they come in and sit down, they cease to be Monsters, and he’ll come out and say hello. If they come in and do some work – mend the washing machine, or service the gas fire – he’ll come out and supervise them. If they go into the conservatory to eat at the table, he’s delighted, because some of them (usually of the male variety) feed him.

But if they go straight through the house (through his conservatory) to the back garden – as the Window Cleaning Monster and the Gardening Monster do – then he has to stay on his chair under the table until they’ve gone away. If I’m honest, I know how he feels.

But Monsters apart, George is very laid back, as you can see, and is happy to incorporate Georgia’s safety gate into his sleeping arrangements. For some reason, the threshold between the kitchen and living room has always been a sleeping place, and the occasional appearance of a gate doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

When he’s not sleeping, he’s still watching out for whatever it is that lives under the stool at the foot of the stairs, and is doing a great job at keeping us safe from them, whatever they are.