Cats just love clean washing..........

Over the last few days I have been busy preparing for Christmas, and some of that time was spent ironing, and in particular the napkins and tablecloth for the Christmas lunch table.I hate ironing and was glad to get it done! Placing it carefully on a side table, along with crackers and games, I congratulated myself on being so well organised. That is until I came home this evening to find a cat had slept on the table cloth. By process of elimination I knew it had been Ripley.....the fur remains were black...she has dark fur...Peanut is ginger...the fur remains were not ginger! Simple!
It has made me realise how long Jonesy has been gone, because I have got pretty complacent about newly washed and ironed clothes. Yep.....he was a devil for sneaking into my washing basket when I was busy, and curling up to sleep. The resulting mangle cats hair and what was clean washing used to send me into a muttering wreck. It didn't matter if I put the basket into the utility room and shut the door, because he would somehow get the door open and end up sat in the basket. Maybe it was the wonderful smell of the fabric softener I use, lol? Jonesy would always entwine himself round the ironing board which often caused me moments of panic that the whole lot would topple over. While he never attempted to attack the iron flex as it waved back and forward when I ironed, Jonesy would generally pat, bap or tug at any item of washing hanging over the board. That would generally end up with me shouting "Jonesy gerrroffff" and Jonesy finding his claw was stuck in the said item, so I had to stop everything and rescue him. Why I never banished him to another room while I ironed, I will never know. Oh hang on, yes I do...the constant, gradually escalating, howls of agony at being shut out would be worse!
Changing the beds, and putting fresh new bedclothes on, always resulted in all three cats sprawled over the duvet cover. Or at least one of them tucked in behind a pillow. Any newly washed clothes laid on my sons bed for him to put away were quickly used as a cat bed should my son not bother...which was frequently! The only thing weird was that the girls liked smelly socks but Jonesy had more style. He only ever liked clean washing!!