Lately I’ve noticed both cats struggling a bit to make the leap to the kitchen counter. Isobel teeters and makes a couple of false starts before launch but usually achieves the objective, but Watson — all nine kilos of him — sometimes misses the target entirely. I kept their water fountain on the counter to encourage them to jump, as well as because it’s easier to maintain up there, but today I moved it to the floor. Watson in particular needs easy access to water, and so far he has refused to learn to climb the two-step kitchen ladder. (Mystery — stairs are an open book.)

Of course, Watson will continue his counter-cruising ways, but I’m very aware that he’s coming up on his tenth birthday and showing evidence of arthritis in his lower back. When Bill was that age, he had trouble twisting around to wash the area above his tail and soon after simply stopped jumping any higher than the lap of a seated human. It’s quite a while since I last saw Watson attending to the fur on his lumbar spine, and now he’s not jumping as well as he used to …

And to those who disapprove of cats on the counter, just why do you think I buy Lysol?