Andie and I finished off our new "catio" today. I don't have any pictures to share because it's dark now and we didn't take any pictures when it was finished, but you'll have to take my word for it that it looks very good. I say "Andie and I" finished it off, but really 95% of the work was Andie, because she is handy and I am not, but I was slightly useful for holding things up and getting the roof on.
Okay, getting the roof on involved removing some of the guttering from the back of our house, but that's a problem we will confront tomorrow. And by we, I almost certainly mean Andie.
For the unfamiliar, a catio is an enclosed space designed for mostly indoor cats to be able to go outside without roaming. In less than charitable terms, it's a cage attached to the back of your house, but big enough for people to go in as well as cats. That sounds a bit wrong. We're not keeping prisoners, honest.
Anyway, yes, the aim was simply to provide a means for our cats Patti and Oliver to be able to go outside, but stay safe. After we lost one of our first cats, Ruby, on the road, we decided to keep our cats indoors. We don't live in a particularly busy area, but there are some absolute cunts who ride motorbikes up and down the street at all hours, plus we're not very far away from quite a busy main road. Plus none of the cats we've had have ever seemed too interested about roaming.
Both of them have been enjoying the ability to go outside, though. Oliver has been particularly interested in learning what Outside is like in recent weeks, and Patti took some tentative but interested steps out there this evening, too. Patti used to go out in the old catio before we tore it down, but Oliver has only ever been outside under heavy supervision from us. The completion of the catio means he'll be able to go out and enjoy himself unsupervised, which I think is going to be really good for the energetic little bugger.
Yes, we had a catio before, but it was something of an experimental project by Andie, more to prove she could do it than anything else. We tore it down after Meg passed, because Patti wasn't showing much interest in going outside, and it looked a bit shabby. Since then, we've revamped the garden quite a bit — the mostly dirt area that was enclosed by the old catio now actually has a patio under it, so it looks much nicer — and the new catio is of much more sturdy construction than the old one. I'd go so far as to say it looks very professional indeed; Andie has become an incredibly skilled handyperson over the course of the last 10 years, and I consider myself very lucky to be able to enjoy all her good work.
I'd make an effort to be handier myself if I lost some weight — which, as longstanding readers will know, has been pretty much a lifelong struggle — and if I didn't have a hernia — which, as longstanding readers will know, has been a problem for a while. The two are connected. If I fix one, I can get the other sorted, too. I am attempting to work on that. If I am ever successful, who knows? Maybe I will become someone who "potters around in the garden", as the cliché has it.
In the meantime, we now have a nice catio, a nice garden and two cats who appear to appreciate the hard work that has been done for them. I look forward to letting them out for some proper time in the sunshine tomorrow.
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