Our three cats

Hickory dickory dock. The mouse ran up the clock. We, my wife that is, have three cats. At least that's what she claims. But I have a suspicion that I'm being hoodwinked here because although I ever only see three cats, I'm pretty sure they're not always the same three cats, because sometimes they are orange and sometimes grey and sometimes black and white, and did I mention that they are never the same size as last time I saw them? But anyhow that's her story and she sticks to it. And never argue minor details with your wife.

The clock is a big old grandfather clock which has been home to an assortment of critters over the last two hundred years. My great grandfather even installed a running wheel geared to the chain so he wouldn't have to wind it every day. Our three cats, the orange ones, love this clock and play king of the castle for the top perch leaving the two losers to inhabit the lower realms. The mice have developed quite the highway system in the clocks innards, and rarely venture from the beaten trails because with three cats adorning your castle it may be deadly to make a wrong turn.

So, mice get hungry and when our, my wife's, three cats fall asleep the mice will make a run for the kitchen. They must make a sound with their little paws because our cats wake up and set up ambushes by the garbage and beside the fridge and near the flour cupboard, oh, and did I mention our three cats are always grey when seen in the kitchen? Our three grey cats will not move all day and all night if they think there's a mouse hiding on them. But cats do get sleepy and mice are conniving so with tummies full the mice make a break for their castle.

Down the hallway and past the parlour they must scamper but our three cats again woken by the pitter patter of little feet, set up for slaughter past their foyer, where strangely, they have never appeared other than black and white, reclining ofttimes in their easy chairs. The highway speed limits are ignored as the mice head for shelter from a black and white storm. The mice's safe arrival to the clocks innards is also aided by this colour change thing because when the fur settles there's clumps of black and white and orange fur everywhere and the now orange cats now are regaining their composure on the grandfather clock.

Yes, my wife has been blessed with a touch of dementia the last whiles and our, her, three cats have lost their names, so I just call them one, two, three; one, two, three; one...