135. The Return Of Ugly Cat – by Monty

Yesterday morning, Chicken launched herself into the garden without doing a pre-launch safety assessment. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: you can’t just go out into the garden without checking that the coast is clear. If you don’t look before you leap, you are bound to be taken off guard.

Unraveling a ball of string event 

On this particular occasion, Chicken was stunned to find Ugly Cat sitting on the wall of my digging pit. She was so surprised, that she ran around in circles, shrieking hysterically in shock. This was fortunate for Ugly Cat, who was able to jump to safety on the fence without too much difficulty. Chicken then came to her senses and tried to reach the cat by jumping at the fence, until I firmly reminded her of her promise to be nicer to Ugly Cat.

To her credit, she did then welcome him back before chattering on about our Independent Olympics. Ugly Cat seemed very interested, and regaled us with stories of his own athletic ability. Apparently, he had been a champion tree climber in his youth, and could not be beaten in any activity which involved a ball. Of string.

Chicken then took off in search of a ball of string, whilst I spoke to Ugly Cat about his absence. It turned out that his unit had gone abroad on holiday, and that Ugly Cat had been put into kennels after flatly refusing to get on the plane. I congratulated him on his decision, citing extreme heat as a good reason for not going, which he agreed with.

He then said that he would be willing to judge a ball of string unraveling competition, as part of our Independent Olympic Games. Chicken re-appeared at this moment, with a ball of string which she had stolen from Arky-Ollie-Just. After a brief explanation of the rules, we set about unraveling it.

Chicken wrapped it around my digging pit a couple of times, before I took over and did the same. It was one of the most enjoyable events of the whole Games, which we both received a gold medal for, as Ugly Cat said he couldn’t separate us with the scoring.

I did feel it necessary to speak to The Fairy about the state of the athletics field, which is deteriorating rapidly. She said that the only way to improve it was to ban all competitors from going on it, so I withdrew my complaint and beat a hasty retreat before she had time to put the ban in place.

Monty