No Ordinary Moggy...

He gallops like a foal, he climbs like a monkey, he sits on your shoulder like a parrot. He wrestles your slipper, he ambushes your ankles as you walk along and tries to climb your legs as you serve his dinner, when not weaving repeatedly through them, trying to trip you up. He tears along the corridors playing football like Suarez (he bites!) with a ping pong ball. He 'talks' incessantly. He eats like a wolf and still wants to try everything that we eat. He's fascinated by water and is constantly following us into the bathroom to watch taps flowing, tip-pawing perilously around the edge of the bath or basin and miaows and scratches loudly at the bathroom door if we beat him to it. He climbs into every cupboard. He can take off his own collar and open his own locked cat flap.

At night he trots up from the foot of the bed to sit on my chest, bunt me on the nose with his and settle his head under my chin until I am hot enough to melt. In the day he wants to play - most of the time. He makes short work of any inflatable toys we find left on the beach. He likes walking across computer keyboards and selecting records for the turntable. He has a decided preference for punk. He demands priority over anything else you may be doing, by pointedly lying across newspapers and poking his head over books. His purring is no more than heavy breathing, but his grin is constant. He does his own version of the 'Eric Morecambe' curtain routine by pretending he can't get through cat flaps or out of his box litter tray, pummelling at them like a mime artist, waiting for you to let him through. It is hard to know what manner of beast he is, but he doesn't seem like a cat. He doesn't even sit like a normal cat, but continually sprawls across sofas and beds, long and stretchy.

He is a demanding yet hilarious feline and we suppose that his previous owners must have abandoned him, finding him too much for them. My partner has even written a song about him to which Mr Cheeky listens dutifully.

After a lucky escape following an argument with a car weeks after we got him from Lost Cats Brighton, Mr Cheeky has made a full recovery and goes out in the day to hang out with his cat friends and visit the neighbours, who have found they have no choice but to like cats even if they were ambivalent before. At night it's curfew time, or should I say 'catfew' time and the cat flap is locked after dinner.

Mr Cheeky with a beach toy, shortly before its demise...

Amazing what you get free in the newspapers these days...

Mr Cheeky tries out a neighbour's scooter for size...

Look at me, look at me, look at me, dammit!....What could possibly be more interesting...?