Poor old Fluffy and Tippi are getting fed rather intermittently these days. So, I have been looking for ways to improve their nasty, brutish, and short lives. Last week I bought a cat food dispenser - a revolting pink contraption that lets a small amount of dry cat food trickle out into a bowl attached to its base. I filled it with Whiskas and showed mum:

'Look at this mum. I've just bought it for the cats. It has all their food in here and it feeds it to them automatically. You don't have to touch it. In fact, please don't touch it. It's mine, OK?'
'OK.'
Then dad came into the kitchen.
'I've just bought this cat food dispenser, dad. It's your job to make sure that mum doesn't touch it.'
'But she's got to touch it to fill it or clean it,' he objected.
'No. I'll do that. I'll be round here frequently enough to make sure it doesn't get dirty or empty. OK?'
'Well, if you think you can do that. But otherwise...'
'No, dad. Let's keep this simple. The rule is "Do not touch Mike's food dispenser".'
My worry, in case you haven't guessed, is that within hours of me leaving the house mum will decide it's been down on the floor long enough and will empty it and give it a rinse. They are standing side by side, looking at me.
'It's mine,' I stress. 'Let me look after it.'
'Do you want to take it with you?' asks mum.
'No, mum. It's for the cats. I'm going to leave it here.'
'Oh, thank you!' she gushes, a huge smile breaking across her face.
'So, we'll just leave it there, and we won't touch it.'
'Well, until it needs-'
'Dad...I'll handle it.'
'Oh, that's what I mean. When it gets empty, you - or mum-'
'Dad. Simple rule: "Do not touch Mike's food dispenser". That's all you need to remember.'
I began to recall the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the Yorkshire King is trying to explain, to his idiot guards, that they are to guard the Prince. One of the guards thinks he is asking him to guard the other:

'Y'know, it seemed a bit daft, me havin' to guard him when he's a guard.'

and on and on it went.

Obviously, I didn't get the message across, because a couple of days later dad went looking for food to give to the cats and, unable to find it because it was all in the food dispenser, searched further than usual. What he found was kitty litter, which he put in the cats' bowls. When the nurse came around later she noticed this and mentioned it to dad. He said:

'Well, it's got a picture of a cat on the packet.'

There are times when Tippi will jump up on the table and try to eat straight out of my mother's Meals on Wheels tray. Mum and dad make a big show of shoo-ing her away when I am there, but I know they think it is quite cute, and mum actually encourages her.

Sometimes when I arrive at the back of the house both cats converge on me, wide-eyed and vocal, knowing relief is at hand. Fluffy's normal habit is to do a lot of stretching in front of me, as if to say 'look at me! aren't I beautiful?', but under these more recent conditions she simply aims herself towards the kitchen and watches anxiously to make sure I'm heading the same way. It would be terrible for mum and dad to have their cats taken away from them, but I am beginning to think it is very unfair to leave the cats there. It is another of those conflicting goals I mentioned.