A Fatpuss by any other name

.....would smell as sweet?

Fatpuss has a number of monikers, nicknames, nom de plumes and pseudonyms, you see. Most - but not all - are related to his enormous bulk and girth.

This isn't surprising, considering the notoriety of the aforementioned enormous bulk and girth. The photo you see here is Fatpuss in his earlier, slimmer format (still growing, you see).

I've mentioned before that he had a real name once, but that we had to change it after a while because all he would ever respond to was Fatpuss, because that's all he ever heard us say.

He also hears us call him these things:

The Fat One. Self-explanatory, really.

Gigantor. Ditto

Fatticus Pussiatus. The original Latin of which Fatpuss is the common derivative.

Fathead. Believe me, this is not as cruel as it might sound. We actually discovered this is what The Neighbour calls the Fat One. We'd lived next door to The Neighbour for over two years when we accidentally set off the house alarm late one Sunday night. For well over half an hour it shattered the Sunday night calm into a million little pieces (to paraphrase James Frey) and the next day we gave all of our neighbours a box of chocolates to apologise - and also to hopefully stem the tide of hatred we worried might come our way. The Neighbour responded in kind by leaving a lovely note on the doorstop along with a chocolate artisan cake decorated with a picture of the Fathead in choc drops. Apparently Fathead goes to visit The Neighbour quite often, and without knowing what his actual name was, this is what The Neighbour dubbed him. For obvious reasons.

Fathead also goes to visit Harry and his nanny during the day - they live a few houses up on the same side of the street. In a similar vein, Harry and his nanny also took to calling him Fatso - which was just as well, because it's so close to his real name that he actually answers to it! Apparently Fathead is quite fond of Harry, in his own disdainful way.

The Mint Panda. This one stems from the trip My One True Love and I took to China. We did a hike along the Great Wall - not the touristy part at Badaling that you see on all the photos, where the Wall is wide and smooth and has high ramparts along the side and on gentle rolling inclines. Oh no, we did a hike along The Wall Less Travelled, which is ancient and crumbling and more resembles a goat-track in parts, with no lovely protective ramparts, only wide enough for one person so we all had to walk single file, not to mention the incredibly steep inclines UP HERE! and DOWN THERE! that had us slipping and sliding all over the place - I spent most of it clutching My One True Love's hand in an effort not to fall off and kill myself. I have a slight fear of being able to see where I might fall. It used to be a phobia, but then I did some cognitive behavioural therapy and it's much more manageable now. Before, I couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs that had gaps in them.

But I digress.

One of the sections of the Wall was so ruined that we had to climb down and take a detour through a valley for a few kilometres. It was filled with vegetation and bamboo (and donkeys, surprisingly), and one of our travelling companions remarked that they wouldn't be surprised to see a panda amble out, chewing on a bamboo stick.

The valley had a very minty smell - it must have been one of the plants growing in such profusion - and it reminded us of the smell of our catmint bushes at home. Fatpuss loves nothing more than to loll about on the catmint, chewing off the tender tips and smooching all over it. The poor bush suffers this indignity well. I swear there has to be some kind of psychotropic substance in that plant, because it makes Fatpuss absolutely and totally delirious with ecstasy. He's never happier than when he's lying around dazed in the catmint.

Not surprisingly, The Fat One is very territorial about it. He defends the bush vigorously and will immediately sit on any other puss who approaches it. Podae has learnt, through trial and error, not to approach the bush. Grimth is still in the error stage.

And so now we call Fatpuss the Mint Panda as well. It's a lovely nickname, it makes him sound all cute and round and benign; when in fact the truth is that he's cute and round and cold and aloof, except for momentary bursts of unexplained affection.

But we love him all the same.