Hey, I'm a parent...well, kind of. Depends of course on how you view cat-sitting, which is what I'm doing right now. Looking after two cats: boy and girl. The boy, by the way, is perched slap next to the keyboard. I'm wanting to rattle away on the keyboard like a concert pianist at full stretch - he, on the other hand, just wants to stretch straight across the keyboard. Wonder how Proust would have handled this? Another madeline perhaps? Henry James? Now he'd made ten pages of dense, turgid prose out of this and thrown in an insight into Old World / New World relations. Shakespeare would have a long deliberate ponder, then set about writing some haunting couplet. Or what about Hemingway ....let's not go there. Big Game huner, Bullfight lover, can't say he was one of wildlife's greatest friends. Somehow, I don't see him voted on the board of the RSPCA.

They're good companions. I've no cat-sitting gene in me, like I've no parenting gene either. So I was apprehensive when I took this gig on originally. Now, I'm a vet, been doing it for two years or more. Got to admit, I do like it when they sidle up to me, makes me feel like Mowgli out of the Jungle Book. Yep, I can talk to the animals. Sensible conversations, mind you. I'm an intelligent guy. I read the Guardian. No one dumbs down while I'm in charge

Of the two, the girl cat was the more inscrutable, to begin with anyway. You know the way women can look at you? That look. I'm not accessorising properly? When in town, don't wear brown? I should shave more? What is it, tell me, I'm a man!

But I think I'm there now. I think she likes me. Don't let me tempt fate by saying that. The boy cat, now we're watching football together. Don't pick up my bad habits though. Please no shouting at the referee. I'll go through the offside rule one more time and then that's it.

There's one constant when you're in loco parentis. You gotta feed 'em. And it's chow time now.