I want you to make sure that you're getting comfy and relaxed as possible.
Take a drink of water if you need to because you might not have had enough today.
There's nothing worse than waking up with a dry throat.
Now settle down,
Take a few deep breaths in and out.
Inhale relaxation,
Warmth and coziness and exhale stress and tension.
Sink lower into your bed and feel your muscles relax.
Relax.
Flexing his big fluffy paws so his toes spread out in a big fan,
Crumble stretched out his legs and rubbed the top of his head against the soft blanket he was laying on.
Just a couple more minutes.
After all,
Cats didn't really need to fill their days with much other than laying,
Eating,
Washing and occasionally playing if the mood struck.
There was nowhere his owner expected him to be.
In fact,
It seemed like laying dozily and purring now and again was exactly what they wanted from him and that suited Crumble just fine.
After napping for a little while longer,
Crumble felt the urge to get up from his spot on the sofa in front of the crackling fire and hunt for some food.
Of course,
Hunting according to Crumble meant he simply needed to check his bowl in the kitchen.
His humans had learned that if there was even a glimpse of the bottom of his ceramic dish,
A few loud and persistent meows would have it topped up again in no time.
He gave one more large arch of his big fluffy back and a dramatic yawn,
Leaping carefully down from the sofa.
He sauntered across the living room rug and into the kitchen to investigate the food situation.
The icy stone tiles were a bit of a shock to his feet,
But he got used to it after a few seconds.
After a few mouthfuls of food,
A crisp breeze from outside wafted through the gaps in his cat flap,
Making his whiskers twitch.
Although chilly,
The wind carried tempting smells that only a cat would notice.
The scent of a distant chicken being roasted,
The smell of nature and birds and grass,
The nip of frost on the air.
Crumble's eyes went big,
And intrigued,
He squeezed himself through the doorway that was only just big enough for him.
He wasn't an overly fat cat,
But appeared rotund because of his dense orange fur,
Like a big fluffy pumpkin with ears and a tail.
The day was brisk with bright sunshine giving the impression that it was warmer than it really was.
Spring wasn't far away,
Yet there was frost dusting the ground like sugared shortbread under his paws.
Snowdrops and crocuses had begun to poke their heads out from the earth in neighbour's flowerbeds after their year-long slumber.
It wasn't quite time for them to bloom yet,
Though.
The morning frosts would come back for a few weeks still,
Until this corner of the world gently thawed.
The plump ginger cat set off down the street,
Nose in the air and eyes alert.
He spied the tabby laying on the windowsill a few doors down from his own house,
And when it didn't stir at his presence,
He continued on.
A solitary robin sat and watched him from the top of a brick wall to someone's front garden.
That is,
Until Crumble hopped up,
Not in a predatory way,
But just out of curiosity.
Crumble,
Unlike many cats,
Was a bit of a pacifist.
When other cats would chirp longingly at the birds hopping about in the trees,
Crumble would gaze half-interested and then turn his attention to something else.
He effortlessly tiptoed along the wall,
And then up again to a higher piece of fence.
For a large cat,
He certainly didn't struggle to balance himself on the thin fence panels.
From up here,
He could nosily peer into the other gardens in his neighbourhood.
Of course,
He believed it was all his territory,
A king surveying his estate.
He leisurely licked his front paw as a light breeze blew against him.
Wafting those earlier smells of roasting chicken from a neighbour's kitchen,
Where they were probably getting an early start on a Sunday roast.
As a cat,
Crumble didn't understand the calendar that humans used.
But he knew that once every few days there was a particularly delicious aroma of food whirling through the streets.
And on these days,
His owners sometimes dropped a little bit of chicken onto a plate for him to enjoy.
With this thought in his mind,
He graciously stretched his body vertically down the other side of the fence,
Holding out his paws in front of him to stop himself from falling,
Giving it a quick pluck with his claws,
And flumping down onto the patch of grass,
Crunchy with frost,
Blades of grass like desiccated coconut sticking up out of the ground.
It was too cold for the grass to begin growing again,
Still the same length as it had been in the autumn,
When the people here last cut it down.
Taking a few steps with the hard earth underfoot,
A wave of energy overtook him,
As it seems to be the way with cats.
Wiggling his behind,
His ears flat against his head,
With huge pupils,
He darted on top of a rogue leaf and caught it underneath his feet.
I told you he's a pacifist,
Except when it comes to fallen leaves,
Apparently.
Using his big,
Soft paw pads,
He played with it a while,
Running back and repeating the same pouncing predator dance over and over until another,
More interesting sound pricked his ears.
He could hear his biscuit box being shaken down the street.
At the click of a finger,
Or the rattle of a dry cat food box,
He abandoned the leaf,
Now in tatters,
And leapt up onto the fence,
Striding along the brick wall.
Two blackbirds now sat,
And promptly flew away when they caught sight of the cat coming towards them.
The frost on the pavement was gradually melting,
But still just as cold.
Hopping merrily with his nose in the air,
And his tail curled into a shepherd's hook,
He bolted back through the cat flap,
And into the warmth of his kitchen.
The stone floor now seemed pleasant compared to the frost-bitten ground outside.
He weaved between the legs of his owner as she fussed him on top of his head,
And poured a generous helping of biscuits into his dish.
Playing with leaves and leaping up and down on fences all morning had got Crumble's stomach rumbling.
So he contented himself by eating half a bowl of food in one sitting,
Swallowing some biscuits whole,
And taking some out of the dish individually,
Giving them a good shake before crunching them up.
Feeling sleepy,
Warm,
And content,
He strode back into the living room,
Across the hard wood floor and woven rug,
Saving the rugs inviting tassels for another time.
He could attack them any time he wanted to,
But right now,
He wanted nothing more than to curl up in his favourite spot,
Next to the fire,
And gently fall asleep.
And Crumble did just that.
The End
