Red has adopted a new best toy. It wasn't made for him, but he has appropriated it for his exclusive use. Given the way his little eye light up when he sees it, it clearly is way better than a bag handle, which is high praise indeed.
So what is this wonder toy? Well, it is a stolen knotting experiment. I tried for ages to make a monkey's fist knot with paracord with little success. When I tried again I saw where I had gone wrong and managed to create a vaguely passable first attempt.
I was so chuffed I had worked it out that I decided to rest on my laurels and celebrate my success with a bath (big time, eh?). Magic came with me and was perched on a towel on the toilet lid on Health and Safety duty as usual as she always feels she has to guard me. She may have a point, as I managed a spectacular fall a couple of weeks ago and had some impressive abdominal and rib bruising and scrapes, which hurt!
On this occasion tho' I was quite safe. Red had been sleeping but as I tried to relaxed in the bath all I could hear was him battering something senseless up and down the hall and having a high old time. I had my suspicions it was my poor monkey knot, and sure enough when I'd finished there was the evidence in a damp but surprisingly undamaged heap.
Paracord seems remarkably robust as a cat toy and despite prolonged chewing it looks as good a new. The only odd thing about this as he runs up to get me to throw it is that it looks like a little string yellow moustache hanging down either side of his mouth.
Red loves toys - the more he's got the merrier the game is. He goes round the living room of an evening systematically murdering all the furry crinkly critters he can find. His favourite is the bright pink fur mouse, or at least it was until yesterday when he got a new tweepy mouse. The tweepy mouse is gray and brown and looks like a little womble. It makes a sound like a cross between a cheep and a tweet when you shake it, hence the name tweepy. Red takes it as a personal mission to knock the tweep out of it and it has had a few good batterings in the short time he has had it.Magic gives all new toys the once over but isn't terribly into toys. She was as a small kitten but grew out of them after a couple of months. She used to play fetch but now if you throw a toy mouse or a ball for her she looks over to where it fell and then back at you as if to say "Its over there if you're looking for it". The only thing she will play with and even brings you to play with is a bag handle. You know the twisted brown paper handles which come from posh paper carriers? Well, these are the Rolls Royce of toys apparently in her world. We save them obsessively as sometimes we get loads and other times nothing seems to come in these carriers. The local deli used to put your shopping in a brown paper carrier and it counted as a treat all round. Lovely food for us and a bag handle to play with for afters for Magic- bliss. Now however they use plastic carrier bags. I am not an eco warrior and generally prefer a plastic bag for its robustness and suitability for the Scottish weather. I loathe paper carriers normally as the risk of your shopping collapsing onto the street in a heap of papier mache leaving you holding nothing but the bag handles doesnt appeal. However, to ensure Magic gets her supply of preferred toy, I am wiling to join with an eco mob to campaign for a return to paper carriers- just so long as it isnt raining when we picket the shop!
