The Christmas present wrapper.....

Oooooo the sound of paper...any paper...drives my cats wild with excitement! All three of my cats loved newspaper, paper bags and most especially wrapping paper. Ripley still is mad about newspapers and if you leave one lying on the floor she will literally take a flying leap and skid across the pages, scattering them every where. She also likes to shred it with her teeth and claws, which makes a nasty confetti mess that takes ages to clear up. Peanut simply watches her, and certainly only ever watched Jonesy in his paper escapades. I suppose too many times being whacked across the ears by the other two made her pretty careful about getting involved?
Over the last week or so wrapping the Christmas presents has reminded me of the times I spent with Jonesy. It has made me miss him terribly and feel pretty sad, because Jonesy followed me everywhere, unless he was sprawled over the bed or sofa, and he would trot after me with excitement if he heard the rustle of wrapping paper. There were two places I wrapped presents...one being my bed (no idea why as bending over the bed would give me back ache) and the other being the dining room table. Now it was okay if I used the table....Jonesy would sit on one of the chairs, and from time to time bap the paper if it came close to him. Leaving any ribbon or bows around was fatal though. Rolls of ribbon would cascade off the table if he managed to grab one with his claw, and he would launch himself onto the floor to chase it around. This would result in me shouting while trying to retrieve the ribbon, and him sulkily getting back on the chair to sneakily grab anything he could. The bed scenario was worse! Why I ever thought wrapping presents on a bed was a good idea I will never know (and do you know what....I still did it last weekend!) If you have read any of my previous posts, you will know that shutting Jonesy out of a room resulted in rapidly louder howls of misery, until you would just let him in and suffer the consequences. I learnt that wrapping paper apparently is good to sit on. Oh and good to lie on. If you had a present on the paper, or in the paper, it was even better. Add ribbon to the recipe and you had the ingredients for a disaster. Oh, and picking sellotape off cats' fur is no fun for the cat or the person doing it! Even remembering all that hassle, it was far too quiet when I wrapped the presents last week....and way too easy.