Oh, yes! My Autobiography (Well a start anyway).

I suppose it's about time I stopped snoozing in warm sunny spots around my estate and started to make something of my blog. ...trouble is, we felines like to sit and think (hence my alias, Thinks!) but we rarely act upon our philosophical ideals. It's a querk of nature, I suppose, that we only spring into action when something rustles in a bush or races across our line of sight. But I'm getting on a bit now. I'm a grandfather and possibly great great great grandfather for all I know.

My own children, of which there were 4, don't keep in touch much. Possibly because they find keyboards and writing difficult with only bobbly bits for fingers. Incidentally, why is our thumb so far up our arms, I often wonder? I've tried using my thumb for firing elastic bands a la Eddie Izzard but haven't successfully shot down any birds yet. I do sometimes do some drilling behind the sofa though. No oil strikes yet.

Well, back to the children. I think they were the result of the 15 seconds of passion as I bumped into Gretchin, my house mate, on passing the kitchen door. I didn't take much interest when they were born. I left all the child rearing to Gretchin. She was a little tortoiseshell (is that how you spell it?) cat, with a rather miserable face. All the weight of the world on her shoulders, but very intellectual. ...Used to sit on the arm of the sofa watching tv every evening. I think she was writing down all the scripts from Coronation Street in very tiny handwriting.

As is the custom, three of my offspring were suddenly whipped off to distant homes after 6 weeks and only Ginger, who strangely was ginger and the biggest, set up camp in No. 38, three doors away. He was big like me but unfortunately had the miserable countenance of his mother.

We, occasionally met up in the evenings for a hunting trip. He would look into my house through the cat flap and off we went. I remember always wishing he didn't look so miserable though. " Come on lad," I would say. "Things could be worse!" It was only later I discovered his new owners had named him Worms. Now that would make anyone eternally miserable wouldn't it!

He spent much of his life on his window sill.....thinking. Sad to say, 4 years ago he came across some rat poison which he apparently ate with some enthusiasm. Off to Catalonia went he. No time to say, goodbye.

A year later, Gretchin developed a bulging eye and seemed even more sorry for herself than usual. The housemasters carted her off to that suspicious character Mr Vet who tried antibiotics which only secured a short recovery. Eventually, the conclusion was that it was a brain tumor (tumour?... damn the americans!) and dear old Gretchin had to be put to sleep. Someone else had to write the scripts for Coronation Street.

To my housemasters surprise, this event affected me greatly. I'd rarely acknowledged Gretchin since the children came along, and then suddenly I felt alone and remorseful. Matters were made worse when shortly afterwards, to my great indignation, I fell in the pond. It was so covered in weed, I mistakenly thought I could walk on it. I galloped home dripping with muddy stuff. We cats just can't bear indignities. We don't make mistakes. The shame of it! I shot through the kitchen into the den and up onto bookcase where I flicked and smeared brown slime all over the wallpaper. What was worse, I felt quite ill for a good couple of weeks. It was over a year before I managed a purr again.

In August 2005, they brought me a new housemate, Millhouse (also called Sybil, because they didn't know he was a boy at first). He's grey and white. A mischievous whipper snapper he's turned out to be. Has a foot fetish. Can't imagine why he wants to smell those. When he wants to sleep with the humans he slops himself over their feet with a big smiley purr. Kinky, I say. I look at him with disdain. "Pah, how could you!"

WInter's on it's way. Time to modify my routine. More indoor sleeping. Must sort out my sleeping spots before Millhouse bags them.