You'll never believe this (part of import week)

Okay, so each time I begin this story I choose to open it with: "you'll never believe this," and each recipient dutifully closes the anecdote with the expected : "you were right, I don't believe it."

Here goes, anyway, you'll never believe this. Yesterday, Sunday brunch, eating things that are bad for me, but locally sourced and organic, therefore good for me in a bad way. A chilled atmosphere of cuddles, radio and poached eggs was suddenly shattered when the cat wanders in through the french doors, screws her eyes up against the sunlight, opens her mouth and speaks.

I look at Rachel, she looks at me. We were inches away from her when it happened. The cat definitely spoke.

Now some cats may speak; Noodle doesn't. She makes a variety of cat specific noises: miaows, purrs, hisses, sneezes on occasion; she has never yet spoken.

Hypothetically, I would have expected, if you'd asked before yesterday, that if she were to speak then she would have spoken in her regular high pitched cat voice. But this utterance was marked by its heavy baritone character; it was Noodle on forty a day, as if Nat King Cole was speaking through the cat from beyond the grave.

So Rachel and I proposed a number of conclusions as the small cat looked at us and our bewildered expressions.

1) The cat is possessed.
2) There was a ventriloquist somewhere in the house.
3) We were experiencing a group hallucination and / or a critical loss of plot.
4) The cat actually spoke.
5) The cat ate something that spoke.

Which is when the next thing happened, which for me is the most important part. Noodle suddenly swallowed, cocked an eyebrow and calmly ambled out into the back garden and chundered next to the lavender bush. In cat fashion, she speedily raked some loose soil and moss over it.

Now I have seen and dealt with Noodle puke before. She has no qualms about throwing up in front of you or your guests, often while you are eating dinner; she never, ever cleans up after herself either. So what did she throw up? My bet was a frog but it could as easily have been a miniature Nat King Cole. As you'd expect, I didn't rush out with a trowel to check.