Cat Horoscopes
Aries
This week you will see a ghost but nobody will notice when you look startled about it since you look like that a lot of the time already anyway. Later, a serendipitous series of events - mostly vole-related - will take you on a long journey (24 yards) but when you arrive at your destination you will do nothing except clean your rear end then wander casually back in the direction you came from.
Taurus
Beware of not getting your rest. Less than 21 hours of sleep can have a negative effect on your working life.
Gemini
This week brings a significant fork in the road for you, in the form of having to decide whether to sit inside an out-of-use shelf unit or on a pile of freshly laundered towels.
Cancer
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Unless your enemy is that pressure washer Colin purchased the other day.
Leo
The time has come to make a change in your life. Specifically, stop following people to the toilet then sitting there staring at them. It’s creepy.
Virgo
A tall dark stranger is set to walk into your life this week, and then walk out again, when you take a piss in his hydrangeas. However, do not fear, because soon after that wedding bells will ring! Not for you. You’re a cat. But you’ll hear them, coming from a nearby church, and they’ll annoy you.
Libra
Your meow is actually really lame. Nobody has the guts to tell you normally, as they want to protect your feelings, but it’s high time you knew the truth.
Scorpio
The moment has come to ask some of life’s big questions. For example: “If I puke on this sofa, does it officially count as mine?”
Sagittarius
There is an ancient eastern proverb that states “Something lost often leads to something found.” The coming few days will be a case in point, as you lose that emasculating pink collar Pam and Brian bought you but find a chunk of old toast to lick nearby.
Capricorn
A big week for you! You’ll lick a spider out of next-door’s tabby’s ear and have a long, emotive dream about a Yorkshire terrier.
Aquarius
This week you will ignore an overpriced toy your owner bought to keep you occupied but piss about for hours with the polystyrene packing beads it arrived with.
Pisces
Go away. I am eating.
If you enjoyed this you will probably enjoy this book, and this one (which should ideally be read afterwards).
Likes are ridiculous, as we all know, but if you take a second to give this piece one, it will mean more people see it. Thank you.
Some other recent pieces by me, in case you missed them:
Old Litkinov
I wrote this short story at the end of December. I have already posted it, buried at the end of a collection of mini fiction which was for paid subscribers only but I feel, with hindsight, it might deserve a page of its own. I’ve got some more short fiction coming for paid subscribers in a few days and - who knows - maybe this might tempt two or three p…
The Real Stories Behind The Lives Of Some Scarecrows I Have Photographed On Walks
JOHN I first met John on a brutally crowded train from Birmingham to Devon. It turned out our reserved seats had been commandeered by two members of the same shrill family from Tamworth and that got us to talking. He could not have looked more out of place, standing there in the corridor, a lopsided toothy look on his face, somewhere in the no-man’s land…
A Deconstruction Of Ladybird's 'Well-Loved Tales', 1964-74
This one is too long to fit on an email (due to the illustrations) so you’ll need to click through to the webpage to read the entire thing…
Brad Francis, Deputy Assistant Senior Head Negotiator Of Sales Experience
From the first time I heard his voice, I could tell Brad Francis was an oily character. It was the kind of voice that was always slipping out of your hand: one of those that, whatever their background, all estate agents seem eventually destined to end up with, a parody of well-spoken eloquence that was, in reality, entirely constructed from evasion and sickly sweet unguents and resin. If I’d had my way, I wouldn’t have had to put up with the displeasure of speaking to him at all. Unfortunately, I wanted the house he had been entrusted to sell, and I wanted it harder than anything I’d ever wanted in my short life.
The Garden Of Forking Hannahs
Hannah was in one of her mum’s flowerbeds trying her best to make some new trainers she’d bought look weathered and dirty when she spotted the woman behind the rhododendron. The bush was not one Hannah had noticed before but she had long since decided it wasn’t her job to keep up with her mum’s obsessive plant buying, which had, in her view, crossed the line separating addiction from full-blown illness. Even as someone with little time for plants, though, she could not fail to appreciate the rhododendron’s purple flowers, which now, in early June, were reaching their apex of loveliness. From behind one of them a hand beckoned to her. She assumed the person it was attached to was one of her mum’s weird gardener friends: another of those ruddy, makeupless women with potting soil in the footwells of their cars who were always coming over and running their hands across the bark of small trees or hovering pensively over alliums. But, no, on closer inspection, Hannah had not seen this person before. Her dad had always warned her not to talk to strangers, especially the kind who hid behind shrubs, but since her birthday last week she had been in an insurrectionary frame of mind, so she wandered nonchalantly over in the woman’s direction.
Just what I needed Tom. Had to say goodbye to my 13 year old black cat, Mr Cosmologist Quink, on 10th January and grief is gripping me right now. Seeing those wee cats, especially Leo has cheered me up 🐈⬛🐈⬛😻
This is what the Dr ordered, dear Tom. I'm technically a Leo, but should really be a Virgo. I wouldn't pee on the neighbour's hydrangeas as they're lovely folks, plus there's three feet of snow out there and if I tried to squat at my age I'll be stuck there. Anyway...I'm more of the sit and stare and things type (mainly birds). My two rapscallion cats do that too. They have all the mischievous but none of the grumpy bits. You cheered up a crabby old bat with the winter blues. Thank you!