Mad Goats and Cranky Cats

Winter nights always find me heading to bed early with a good book and three of the cats end up there with me. Demelza takes her place at my right shoulder and Peaches usually further down the bed. With Gypsy there is a huge drama as she makes "the big entrance". First her head pops round the door to check we're watching before she makes a mad dash across the floor and up on the wicker basket at the opposite side of the room. From there she walks across the dressing table and onto a chair before climbing up on the bed beside me and burrowing under the sheets to cuddle. However this past week she has decided to sit on my chest so I can't read which is also nervewracking as she is within striking distance of Demelza.

I don't know why these two don't get on but suspect it's all to do with jealousy. Usually Demelza has the younger cat bailed up on top of the furniture but lately Gypsy has begun fighting back which is what happened Saturday night and unfortunately I was caught in the middle. I felt my head being lacerated by her claws and yelled which frightened her into falling off the bed taking my face with her. On examining the damage I found scratches on my chin, a deep one on my forehead and a fine laceration over my right eyebrow and in the side of my mouth. I applied disinfectant before getting back in bed feeling sorry for myself. Gypsy did her usual routine but just ended short of the bed on the chair with her back to me. We all went to sleep but I was woken an hour later when Gyps began wailing and crawled into bed for a cuddle- her version of an apology I guess.

I thought that was all the excitement I'd be getting for the weekend but when I opened the curtains yesterday morning at 7am I saw that Tobermory my cashgora goat was on my front lawn. On further investigation I discovered someone had left my back gate open. I snuck out with the dog for protection and managed to replace water in some of the rabbits' bottles before Toby spied me and charged, pirouetting with his horns down read to headbutt my knees. I only just managed to go backwards up the ramp and get the back door shut with him in hot pursuit. I turned off the light till Toby wandered back down and then let the dog in. Some help he turned out to be!

I rang the landlady managing to wake her up and she promised that once the landlord had come back from doing something up at the woolshed she would pass on the message. Up to then I would remain a prisoner in the cottage. For an hour and a half I worried that I hadn't fed the chickens or the mother hen and her chick out front. Plus the tarp on the outside rabbit hutch was flapping loose and it had begun to rain.

By 9am the donkey had also wandered in and was cheerfully eating the garden. Looking out the kitchen window I couldn't see Toby at all so decided to go out again. Taking an alkathene pipe with me to hit him over his horns if he attacked I shakily went to the hen house and fed the ravenous fowls before sneaking out front to feed the mother hen and chick and weigh down the flapping tarp. All the while I was looking over my shoulder expecting the manic goat to charge out from where he was hiding but also hoping that if he did Briar the donkey would defend me as she hates him with a passion.

At 10.30am the landlord arrived with one of his hunterways, another Toby. He admitted to me that he had taken the catch off the gate while trying to fix it last week and never returned to replace it which is why it had sprung open. He couldn't find Tobermory or the donkey so decided they'd gone back out and was just about to leave when he saw them hiding behind the hen house. Sending Toby dog to get them out instead they made a break for it and ran round to the front. Reappearing from round the cottage Briar came trotting past me and went through the gate with the dog after her. Unfortunately he became so wound up he began chasing one of the horses out in the paddock. Meanwhile Toby decided to head back to the hen house with Ken running behind him. When he saw the dog worrying the horse he yelled "Get out Toby!" and Tobermory being an intelligent animal thought he was referring to himself, changed direction and trotted out the back gate.

Life is never dull in the country!