A Day in the life of Mummy

A Day in the Life of Mummy

I wake up with the dawn. I hate alarm clocks, so I never use them. I get up and go downstairs with Ruby and let him out. Then I open the door of the cats’ room and let out Kenny, Maisie and the two kittens, Smarty and Sooty. I cuddle Smarty and Sooty for a bit then I let Kenny and Sooty out of the cat flap and immediately relock it because Smarty isn’t allowed out at the moment. Maisie usually jumps up onto the windowsill in the kitchen and I let her out of the window. Smarty cries a bit because she can’t go out, so I play with her for a while, throwing ping-pong balls up the stairs or dangling a piece of string with a knot in one end. I put the kettle on ready for that first cup of tea that will bring me to my senses. Before it has boiled I go into my study to say good morning to Peeko and Agnes, both cockatiels, also to Dixie the lovebird, and to Jasmine, another, very sick cockatiel. Jasmine has a tumour on her belly, and she can’t cope in the aviary any more. She is going to fly off into that big blue sky not long from now I think. Agnes had a stroke recently and is a bit wobbly on her feet. Peeko is a midget cockatiel, too little to survive in the outside aviary. I turn off the nightlight, and take Peeko and Dixie upstairs to the birdroom. There Dixie spends her days in the lovebird aviary and Peeko in the canary aviary with Sonny and Honey. Then I go downstairs to make myself my cup of tea and go back into my study to check my horoscope on the Internet, see if I have received any e-mail messages, which I usually haven’t, and phone my mother to check all is well down in the old homestead. My study is a lovely room, full of plants and light, and of course Agnes and Jasmine spend their days here. Sometimes I play them tape recordings of the cockatiels outside – Agnes in particular seems to love this and calls to her mates on the tape.

Next I go into the cats’ room and pick up all the empty bowls from the night before, putting them in the sink to be washed. I clean the litter trays and disinfect them before putting in fresh litter, and Smarty delights in being first to use one of the trays, a small perk that compensates for having to stay indoors. She scrapes away busily in there, while I arrange eight bowls of cat biscuits on the floor (one is for Annie). I put out two bowls of fresh drinking water too, in different locations otherwise Annie will slobber in both, making them foul for the cats. Sooty, Maisie, Ruby and Kenny squeeze back indoors via the cat-flap and Foxy, Suzy and Smarty come flying downstairs – they can all hear the biscuit box being rattled anywhere within a five mile radius. After their breakfast most of them ask to be let back out, though Foxy and Suzy usually can’t be bothered. They are getting rather fat because of this reluctance to take exercise. As well as biscuits, I give Maisie a few vitamin tablets every morning as she is prone to catching colds. Annie goes back to bed for a while, emerging again when she hears me go outside to see to the outdoor birds.

Once the cats' breakfast is done I start on the birds’ breakfast. This is the highlight of Smarty’s morning, as she waits for her share of the birds’ sweetcorn. Sometimes Sooty and Maisie eat it too. It must be in their genes. The other cats just turn up their little pink noses at it. Apart from sweetcorn the birds have chopped apple, carrot, broccoli, cucumber and celery, all mixed up with eggfood. (In winter the outdoor birds get digestive biscuits and cheddar cheese too, to keep them fat and warm.) The vegetable-eggfood breakfast mix has to be served out into various bowls, for the canaries, the lovebirds, Peeko, Jasmine, Agnes, and lastly one big bowl for the outside aviary. Added to this everyone gets a fresh bowl of water. In the mornings I add vitamins to this drink, either calcium with vitamin D, a multivitamin or else a probiotic to ensure that there are some beneficial bacteria doing the jobs that beneficial bacteria should do in my birds’ guts. I then distribute the breakfast and fresh drinks to their various destinations. Before taking the food to the garden aviary I go out there to clean up. I remove the top layers of newspaper from the floor, which is a quick way of removing the night’s droppings, a potential source of disease. If it has been raining in the night I have to change all the sodden (I did say sodden) newspaper and put down fresh, which to me is the most depressing of jobs. To do this I wear old clothes, or else a pair of paint-stained overalls, which I can later fling into the washing machine. Then I put the birds’ breakfast out into the aviary, plus fresh millet and seed, all served in large cat litter trays. On major cleaning days however, when I have to hose out the entire aviary (an all-day job) their breakfast often becomes a late lunch instead, though of course they still get their fresh water in the morning. This major cleaning operation occurs about every 10 days in summer, and at longer intervals in winter – you have to pick a sunny day for it, since if you drenched the aviary with water in freezing weather you would make a rather miserable environment for the birds. In the cold weather I wear waterproof trousers and my waxed jacket and wellies, because if I were to get soaked I would probably die of something horrible.

After serving breakfast in the aviary I go indoors and make myself another cup of tea, sometimes eating a piece of fruit or a carrot with it. Whilst I am consuming this I grab a handful of peanuts, open the kitchen window, and put them outside on the windowsill for the squirrels and pigeons – in fact I do this several times during the morning, according to demand. Then I go upstairs and have a shower, washing the millet and droppings out of my hair. If the house is a mess I mop the floors, and maybe spray the walls with a solution that eradicates the little scents that Ruby and Kenny leave me as presents occasionally. I don’t vacuum until later in the day when Daddy has emerged from his duvet cocoon. And if I have to take an animal to the vet’s I don’t get much cleaning done at all. Then when I am done with all my duties I comb my hair, clean the cats’ hairs off my jacket as I put it on, grab my bag and the car keys, and go out for a bit of time to myself. I often go and have a coffee at one or other of the very few good cafés round here. This cup of coffee represents the best, most relaxing moment of my day. Sometimes in an attempt to hang on to that moment of bliss, I order a second one, but it never quite has the same effect. Alternatively I may do some food shopping or visit a second-hand bookshop or two. I collect old botany books mainly.

As for animal food, I don’t buy much of it from shops these days, except for the birds’ vegetables and their biscuits and cheese, and of course the cats’ fish, two stones of coley which has to be collected from the fishmonger’s. The rest of the food is delivered, in bulk – seed, millet, tinned meat, biscuits, peanuts for the squirrels and pigeons, you name it, we keep it here in stock. This whole house is busting at the seams with animal food. Our dining room resembles an old-fashioned grocer’s shop, with all the tins of cat food arranged colourfully on the shelves of the dresser. That was Daddy’s idea. It does look funny, I must admit. We don’t buy dog food because Annie refuses to eat it. I think she has lived with cats for so long that she has begun to believe she is one.

Then I make some lunch for myself and Daddy, the only animals here who don’t eat cat food or millet, and following that I sometimes have forty winks, or else I read a novel or a botany/biology book, or do some work on the computer.

In the late afternoon Daddy chauffeur-drives Annie to the park where they play ball and have a long walk, and in winter they don’t get home till after dark. When the weather is soggy Annie has to have a shower after every walk! Once she is clean again she gets a handful of dog biscuits, which she would eat all day long if we let her. Then just as it begins to get dark I take a clean bowl of water out to the birds in the garden aviary. I top up their millet if necessary, and I usually spend a few minutes tickling the heads of the hand tame cockatiels who love their daily quota of human affection. Then I lock up and go indoors to put the fish on to cook. Whilst that is boiling away I change all the indoor birds’ water and their newspaper, and put out fresh millet and seed where needed. I bring all the dirty bowls into the kitchen where I wash and disinfect them. When the fish is cooked I cool it under the cold tap, and distribute it into eight bowls. Ruby is always the last cat to come home, Sooty being the first – sometimes she comes in so early that I give her some cat biscuits to tide her over till dinnertime. The cats all wait in the kitchen while the fish is cooking, then miaow with joy as I carry it into the dining room for them. Suzy elbows all the other cats out of the way so that she can be the first to sink her teeth into the succulent coley. Annie gets a tin of cat food as well as her fish. After dinner only Ruby is allowed out, though the others sometimes try it on a bit. I worry about foxes and cars, but Ruby is old and streetwise, and he gets very stressed if I try to keep him in after dark. He is always back home by 9pm however, and everyone settles down then, until bedtime.

Alongside all these events, at about 7pm I bring Peeko back downstairs to my study. I always feed her some warm handrearing food and tickle her head before putting her back into her cage for the night. Then at about 8pm I bring Dixie back down to sleep in her cage. For Dixie and Peeko my study has become a sort of birdie bed-and-breakfast hotel. Dixie used to pull out her feathers if I left her in the aviary overnight; she couldn’t sleep properly for some reason. But she’s fine and fully feathered now that she gets her full eleven hours! As for Peeko, I wouldn’t leave her in with the canaries overnight because she’s quite frail and can’t fly very well and I suppose I simply feel that she is safer in her cage at night.

Finally, I cook dinner for myself and Daddy. I often listen to the Archers whilst cooking. This is usually a tape recording of the seven o’clock programme which I didn’t have time to listen to at seven. This is the second most relaxing moment of the day.

After dinner I turn off the main light in my study, leaving on a few small lamps so that while Peeko and the others can rest their eyes I can still read for a bit. (The light in the upstairs birdroom dims and switches itself off automatically.) Peeko sometimes comes back out of her cage for another cuddle and a head-scratch with me and Daddy if we are having an after-dinner cup of tea in there. Actually there is no way she will allow Daddy – her favourite human – to sit there without letting her out! She becomes extremely vocal if she feels ignored! The minute Daddy enters the room Peeko begins to scream like some over-excited fan at a pop concert!! Now there’s adoration for you.

At about nine o’clock, after switching the night light on, I turn off the lamps in my study and leave the birds to sleep. Then I put Kenny, Maisie, Sooty and Smarty into the back room with a little tinned food for supper, and there they sleep away the rest of the night in their bunk beds (a small wooden shelf unit with cat beds on each shelf). This arrangement is to prevent fighting between Maisie and Suzy, and also to prevent Kenny from jumping on my head at 4am for a cuddle. Sometimes I take a book upstairs to read for an hour before I turn in. Usually Ruby and Foxy are sprawled out on the bed, with Annie underneath it and Suzy in her basket on the landing. Suzy always begs for biscuits as soon as I come upstairs, miaowing loudly and winding herself around my legs. I keep a little box of them by my bed, so the three upstairs cats each get a handful, as does Annie. Sometimes I play with Ruby – his favourite toy is the piece of string with a knot in it. If he is in a good mood he head-butts me, which is a kiss. Then I turn off the bedside lamp and go to sleep almost instantly. Daddy works till about 3am then he too comes to bed, booting the cats off his side with no compunction.

Then after no time at all the birds begin to sing, I see the sun coming up, and however much I squeeze my eyes shut I have to face the fact that it is morning again. Ruby wails if I don’t get up quickly. He wants to be let out. I swing my legs out of bed, totter out of the bedroom, and I am off again……

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