I should know better

A huge outcry in the garden, and I rushed out to see a cluster of screaming Papillons round the base of a conifer. Diagnosis - cat up the tree sneering at them as usual.

I moved in to stop it. Parting the outer branches I could see Eloise the tabby parked on a branch about six feet up - and opposite her another strange cat, which seemed to be mostly white. We don`t see too many visiting cats round here - in terms of holiday fun it would be the equivalent of a day trip to Iraq.

I pushed back the branches to see how to manage a rescue...

And revealed Florian, sitting happily on a branch opposite Eloise, staring fixedly at her.

The old cat was....well, the word that comes to mind is catatonic. Talk about a paradigm shift! The whole traditional cat-dog interface had collapsed. In Eloise`s glazed eyes I could read the full horror of the realization that now Dogs Climbed Trees.

Florian, meanwhile, had realised by now that the main fault in his strategy was that he had arrived on a branch on the opposite side of the trunk to the cat. I waited to see if wood-boring abilities were part of his new superpowers as well, but instead he sedately climbed down. The others watched him in awe.

Eloise quietly legged it, no doubt to spread the word that the old order had passed for ever, and that in this new changed and unfriendly universe no moggie was safe up a tree.

I`ve been watching mild-mannered Florian closely ever since, but so far he has not appeared in tights or a cape.