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| George still at seven months |
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Why is he still seven months old?
Because I was a month out last time. If you remember, the
vet kept
revising his age downwards. I just got confused. And the
vet got confused in the first place because George was
so big. But he was seven months old on or about the 20th
of December, and that’s official.
In my September newsletter, I included a photo of George
lying on a white step – the photo taken in the same place shows how much he’s
grown.
He still shows no sign whatever
of anything making him angry. If he gets a fright, however,
his tail becomes absolutely
huge. And each time it’s happened (twice, to my knowledge), he’s become perfectly happy again within moments, but is still walking about with an enormous, fluffed-up tail about twenty minutes later. I don’t
know what frightened him the first time, but the next time
he accidentally shut himself in the loo.
As well as the general photographs
of George leading the life of Riley, there are a couple
of him helping me with
the Christmas decorations. In view of his interest while
I was dressing it, I thought the tree would be pulled over
before I had time to stand back and look at it, but no – George
has been very grown-up indeed about it. Mostly. He thinks
Christmas is pretty good; he got used to there being more
people than usual in the house, and he likes turkey. But
his true love, as I discovered earlier in the year, is
ham. He adores it, and can hardly eat it for purring. And
at Christmas, we get a really big ham…
He’s marginally less messy when he eats, mainly because I cut everything up so small he can’t start batting it about the kitchen, and has little option but to eat it. I’ve also discovered that if I say ‘No paws! Use your mouth’, he takes his paw away and eats whatever it is. But this backfired one night, when he dutifully took his paw away, and did indeed use his mouth – to
pick up the piece of food and carry it off, doubtless in
order to start batting it about. Cheating, I thought, but
clever, finding the loophole.
He continues to invent new games – a very popular one just now is an interactive one played with a human being. He passes the ball to you, and you pass it back to him – it goes on until he has to get on with whatever he was doing before the game began. He’s learning all about ricochets and angles – I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he started putting spin on the ball. It’s a cross between snooker and football (pool and soccer). And on the soccer side, he’s a good trapper of a ball, a very good dribbler (walking or running with the ball at your feet), and an accurate passer, but sometimes – as you can imagine, since we’re talking about gentle George – his passes lack force. Not a natural striker, then, but a useful winger, and he could edge the odd one past the goalie in a goal-mouth scramble. All-in-all, he’d be a worthwhile addition to anyone’s team. Except when he picks the ball up in his mouth and walks off with it, which I don’t
think is allowed in association football. |
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