I can't decide if the nights are getting shorter or the days are getting longer. But it seems like day has arrived in the middle of the night!

Dumpty and penguinNormally at this time Maid is fast asleep and I have to wake her as I have usually been lying beside her with just my thoughts to keep me company. However for the past few days we have both been awake extremely early, which is good as something rather wonderful has been happening at this time of day.

It's as if all my pet blackbirds have collected all their friends and families and are sitting right outside my bedroom window serenading me. They all sing and trill together and it's so loud. I do appreciate that my blackbirds have all come together to ease me into a new day with a chorus of singing, and it just goes on and on. The window is open and the chilly morning air waterfalls into the room and riffles through my fur which is a very pleasant and refreshing feeling. I don't think Maid appreciates it as she snuggles, grumbling further under the duvet.

I know she is awake, as a hand will emerge from under the duvet and stroke me. I roll on my side and allow her to tickle my tummy. I purr, rather loudly, in the hope that this will jolt her from her drowsy state and give me the proper attention which she should afford me.

Sometimes she gets up and makes herself a cup of coffee and brings it back to bed, then she gets my treatie tin and will sleepily drop kibbles into my mouth, more miss than hit as they roll onto the carpet which is annoying as Wills will Hoover them up, complete waste; strawberries to a pig. Other mornings she just groans at my birds singing to us, which I find rather ungrateful; she will pull the duvet back over her head and pretend to be asleep until the bedside alarms trills into action, reminding her to go to the place called work. By that time most of my birds have run out of songs and have flown away, leaving just the odd blackbird perched on a lamp post or in a tree to carry on filling the air with its wonderful songs.

When Maid has got up, she makes my bed which we now share with her childhood love - a knitted penguin, which is as old as Maid so is clearly now an antique, like she is. Apparently cats like playing with wool and I have been tempted to unravel the penguin, but this brought a sharp intake of breath from Wills. The penguin was Maid's first love when she was a kitten and is worth more than diamonds to her - at least I know my place, lower than a stuffed penguin. I managed to knock it off the bed with a swift swipe of the paw.

I ambled into the lounge to see my pet blackbirds on the patio as they queue for raisins by the French window. Such royal entertainment laid on for one, and nearly every morning. I am a spoiled girl. The only time my blackbird cabaret didn't roll up to serenade me was two days ago when we had an almighty storm. As Tom Cat Towers is on top of a hill, we were almost in the broody clouds and certainly right in the middle of the loud thunder claps and lightening that lit the whole sky up like it was daytime. I was quite amazed and sat on the bed watching it while Willi the Wuff quaked under the table his eyes wide with fear. The rain was almost vertical as it slapped onto my bedroom window and ran like a waterfall onto the garden. It was so wild that no birds ventured out of their nests to sing, I suppose that their feathers would be soaked through. I am somewhat disappointed, though, that they didn't make an effort to serenade one's royal morning.

Maid's version

4am every morning for the past week or so the dawn chorus has been deafening! It's as if every bird in the world is sitting outside the bedroom window singing its heart out to greet the new day. Madam seems to enjoy it, she lies with me on the bed watching the birds’ shadows as they flit by the window, she seems quite attentive to all the bird song. It's never been as loud in previous years and the cacophony is just too noisy to sleep through.

 

 

A Morning Kiss

A morning kiss, a discreet touch of his nose landing somewhere on the middle of my face.
Because his long white whiskers tickled, I began every day laughing.

Janet F Faure

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