Crazy Cat Lady Part 10 - Lily

Remember when I wrote a post all about how I love my Fred? Didn’t I say that Lily would get her own turn?

I love my Lily because she has just ever so much of a touch of the crazies about her. If she was a human, Lily might be diagnosed with ADHD or something similar. Everything is done at a hundred miles per hour until she eventually crashes in a heap somewhere, chin out flat on the ground like a dog.

If Lily is particularly interested in something she starts to put her head on one side. This movement gets more and more exaggerated until her head is 180 degrees. I’ve never managed to get a picture of her doing this because I’m laughing too hard. Accompanying this extreme head tilting is the wide eyed stare – the eyes get bigger and bigger (and ever so slightly crossed) the further the head tilts until she resembles a bush baby.

One of Lily’s greatest loves? My i-pod earphones. If I’m at Mum’s I have to put them in the zip up compartment of my bag, otherwise, before I know it, Lily will walk past me, earphones in mouth, dragging the whole i-pod behind her.

Her other great love is tea towels. Mum puts them in the washing machine when they’re dirty and Lily duly pulls them out again and walks about the house, dragging them between her legs.

But her greatest love of all is her brother. She loves her Fred ever so much and always keeps an eye out for him. When they were tiny they wouldn’t go to sleep without each other but now that’s changed and they’re more independent, more likely to sleep somewhere on their own, but something happens during the day/night and eventually they migrate towards each other.

Lily acts as Mum to Fred, making sure he’s sorted, giving him a wash when she thinks he needs it (which is far more often than he thinks he does), making sure to get well behind his ears and under his chin. I have a brilliant video showing her washing him but that kind of technological wizardry is well beyond me so I can’t share it with you at the moment I’m afraid.

Lily is also a classic chitterer. Chittering is what I call the sound that cats make when they see birds. Lily will do it at anything that moves – like small flies and spiders. Birds get the biggest reaction out of her and the tail starts swishing like a mad person, meaning that you have to move everything out of her way before it gets knocked on to the floor. And if the ring-necked doves appear in the garden, her head nearly falls off. She’s not deterred by the fact that they’re half her size, she’d take them on given half the chance.

Lily sees things that aren’t necessarily there. She hones in on something on the carpet and the starey eyes begin. You pull your feet up on to the sofa, certain that a tarantula is going to appear from under the TV cupboard but nothing seems to happen. You go over to see what it is she’s looking at and discover that it’s a money spider. In fact, probably smaller than a money spider. You kill it for her and get it out of the way but she doesn’t quite believe it’s gone so will just sit and wait for it to reappear, she has patience like no other.

Patiently awaiting the return of the money spider. She was there for half an hour. For reals.

Lily is affectionate. Super affectionate. The kind of affectionate that will probably end up in someone falling down the stairs because she’s winding round their legs. The kind of affectionate that makes her miaow outside the bathroom door if you close it when you’re in the toilet. The kind of affectionate that means she will sit on the side of the bath while you’re in it. The kind of affectionate that’s knocked over glasses of wine due to an over-zealous nudge of the head.

Lily being affectionate while I cut the Rhubarb cheesecake on Mother's Day

Mostly I love her because she’s silly. Silly Lily.

Putting on a show for The Person on May Bank Holiday weekend