Our kitchen is small, and our fridge is tiny. There's no room in it for a defrosting chicken or joint of meat, so the oven is the best (and most secure) place.

I don't know how our cats have the brass neck to pinch food. They live like kings. In addition to their sachets of proprietary cat food and Iams biscuits, they get delicious slices of the best chicken breast while we submissively eat the legs. They get roast pork, best beef, lean mince, in fact every kind of meat imaginable.

While we're eating our meagre rations, we get gently poked and prodded by a strategically aimed Siamese paw. And the ear-splitting chorus of "Gimme!" every two seconds.

When my husband visits his family in Africa, he tries to tell them about the choice food our cats are given and they all refuse to believe a word of it.