Merrymakers, make merry quietly.
Revellers, revel softly.
First Footers, please enter in your slippers.
See in the New Year for me please, and bid it wait until breakfast, when I shall be ready to greet it.
Do not disturb till 2016
Arthur is so tiny and fragile, he feels the best place for him would be in an egg box. It is fortunate therefore, that he fits it so well.
Tiny Arthur
It’s been a while since Arthur found a box that was just right, but he likes to keep in practice. This one was acceptable yesterday evening. Today it has fallen out of favour again…
Arthur in a box
Because of my drawings, it seems that Arthur and Percy are becoming quite well known to people who have never met them. Most of those people think that the ginger boys sleep almost the whole time. This is of course largely true (they are cats), but it’s not always true. The trouble is, it is so much easier to draw them when they are sleeping. So, to redress the balance, here is a picture from memory of Arthur and Percy, leaping and pronking over possession of a cardboard box that was favourite of the moment last week. And for those unfamiliar with the term, Percy is the one who is pronking.
Leaping & Pronking
Arthur has spent a week or so in the small box of his choice. The first one had sides that were unaccountably floppy after he slept in it for just one day. The second one, though about the same size, was found to have a more sturdy constitution. Having spent all this time sleeping in the second small box, Arthur feels that he must have trained himself down sufficiently to tackle the last of the small boxes. This one is a tricky customer: it is not actually much smaller than the other boxes, but it has high sides and a very solid constitution. The high sides largely preventing spillage, so it means that all of Arthur must be folded skilfully into it. But, as mentioned, he has been in training, and he is small enough now.
Arthur’s new favourite box
The second picture shows how important it is to first establish that abluting can be done in a place of residence before commencing to sleep there.
Ablutions in a tiny box
Arthur is delighted to announce that his theory on the boxes was correct. They have now matured and are much more accommodating. He feels a bit like goldilocks in the house of the Three Bears, one of them will prove to be a perfect fit. This one, for instance, is looking quite promisingly Arthur-sized.
Goldilocks and the three Boxes
Arthur is thinking outside the boxes. He is mildly surprised that none of these particular boxes will accommodate him today but he feels that perhaps they need time to mature, so he is content to sit on the boxes and contemplate geometry until they see fit to be the correct way up.
Arthur Cat, thinking outside the boxes
continuing yesterday’s story, and having been moved first from my chair and then from the stuff I was actually working on, Arthur thought the rules of where cats are allowed to be and of physics in general needed a good challenging.
So he went and sulked in the middle of the kitchen table, in an egg box.
Apparently Arthur takes up no more space than a mere dozen eggs.
Arthur Cat in an egg box
When I discovered where he was I sat down and drew him, which made me late and Arthur happy. He seems to be developing a taste for small boxes as he is back in the little one this afternoon.
Bonsai Cat
Arthur, as if in answer to Percy’s extravagant demonstration yesterday, of how to sit in two boxes at once, spent some time sleeping in a box this afternoon. However, he feels that in these straitened times the conspicuous consumption of box-space is immoral, and is therefore demonstrating frugal box-sitting, using the smallest amount of box required.
If the cat fits…
If the cat fits 2
