Following Irene's tale of the Siamese ... Bonnie Shaljean and I once shared a house with a number of others, including two cats (Dunstable and Felicity). There are many tales to be told, including that of how we didn't know they were both female until we had two litters of kittens in the house, but the tale of sneaking bacon made me remember a couple of stories.

There was the time one of our housemates had made himself a fine Sunday brunch of the full English, and took it into our sitting room with the Sunday papers. As he sat there, Dunstable arrived followed by all the kittens. She gave a command in cat and the kits all sat obediently in a semi circle. Our friend took his eyes off his breakfast briefly to turn a page in the newpaper. Quick as a flash, Dunstable stole his bacon and shot off upstairs, followed by the kittens. It was obviously the practical session of their schooling.

And then there was the time another of our housemates had cooked up a fine casserole to serve to his visitors. They ate in another room, and he left the food in the pot on the cooker. When he offered second helpings to his visitors he was embarassed to find there was no longer any meat in his pot - one of the cats had clearly found a way to fish each piece of meat out by lying across the eye-level grill.

I was always going to write about our experiences in that house. The title of the book? "Tongue Marks in the Butter."

Our current employer, Cleo, is remarkably well behaved with food and never, ever steals anything. She is, however, very good at putting her whole heart and soul into her eyes and sitting quietly at my side when I'm eating, purring gently and licking her lips. A good technique.

Actually at the moment we're trying to feed her up, as she's lost such a lot of weight (thyroid problems and now probable liver damage - we're working on it). So these days she gets a lot of treats. Throws most of them up again, mind. Luckily we have a good carpet cleaner.

Anne