Ten minutes later, however, he was at the door again demanding to be let inside.

“Oh well, I suppose you can come in,” said mum, walking across from where she had been doing the ironing to open the door for him.   “Just so long as you haven’t got a dead budgie in your mouth.”

But of course he did!

“How in the…?” said mum, looking across to where the metal lid was still firmly in place on the bin.

Although not believing for a second that the tomcat could have taken the lid off the metal bin, retrieved the dead budgie, then put the lid on again, mum had no choice but to open the bin and look.

“Well then where did you get that one from?” asked mum, seeing the first green bundle still lying on top of the rubbish.

This time Manza was more reluctant to give up his prize.   “Come on fair’s fair, one for you and one for me!” he seemed to be thinking as mum chased him round and round the back patio.

Finally she cornered him and the second budgie joined the first one in the bin.

This time, wisely mum decided to take Manza into the house with her.   Which was just as well since an hour or so later there were loud shrieks from next door, followed by a string of obscene language, as our neighbours discovered that their budgies were both missing.   Amidst the obscenities were a number of none-too-subtle threats about what they would do to a certain large, black and tan tabby tomcat, if he was ever silly enough to get within range of their meat grinder.

“Cat’s guts sausages, oh yuk!” said Christine, and Manza didn’t seem too pleased about the idea either.

As mentioned, in his youth Manza was incredibly agile.   My brother David and I would play snooker out in the garage, and the tomcat would leap up onto the billiard table from a standing start, to help us to knock the brightly coloured balls around.   In his later life though, Manza’s joints became stiff and rheumatic, so that not only could he no longer leap up onto the billiard table, but he even had difficulty leaping onto my bed — perhaps half the height of the table.

Unable to do a standing leap anymore, he would take a run-up, spring with all of his might, then more often than not would land with his front paws and belly on the end of the bed, and his back legs and behind dangling over the edge.   Then, oh-so-slowly Manza would claw his way up onto the bed, to walk down to lie on top of my legs, which would soon start to go numb from the weight of the tomcat cutting off their circulation.

THE END