I don't make a habit of repeating columns from several years ago. After all, I'm the first to moan when the television companies do it with programmes on a regular basis. 'Another chance to see', has become the euphemism for 'we're doing it on the cheap again'.
Nevertheless, I can honestly say several people have asked me for the 'one about cats being sick'. One person added that they had laughed so much they had nearly wet themselves but had failed to keep the copy to repeat the experience.
Although not wishing to be the cause of mass incontinence I bow to popular demands - so here it is - slightly updated.
'Settling down to begin this week's column I was interrupted by one of the most dreadful sounds you can hear on a late Sunday afternoon - the muffled noise of a cat gagging in preparation to being sick.
It always has an electrifying effect on human beings - shooting them out of their chosen chair into a fruitless dash round the house trying to get to the offending animal before it is too late. And it usually is.
Why, oh why, you ask yourself, as you are faced with the inevitable , do we keep pets.
They maybe loving faithful companions but they are also bringers of headless bloody torsos into the house. They are the decimators of furniture legs and arms; they have, when it suits them, very unsociable toilet habits. They pick up little visitors and when they have a full house evict them onto your beds, your legs or your guests. They always want to go out when they are in and come in when they are out, usually at 3am in the morning. They can sleep in a double bed with you and you will still find yourself waking up clinging for dear life to two inches of mattress and half a pillow (husbands also do this but they are a good deal less fluffy and cuddly)
They roll in things only a forensic scientist could identify and delight in shaking off the contents of a sodden coat in the hall reaching new heights of splattering especially when the walls are recently decorated. They will seek out and lean on the one square inch of wooden surface you have touched up with brilliant white gloss even if it is close to the ceiling. And they will of course pointedly turn their noses up at all 23 varieties of cat food you have in the house but nosh into a decomposed dead frog on the lawn with relish.
We put up with it because we love them, nasty niffs and all.
But sick is another matter.
I'm convinced that cats in particular use being sick and other unmentionables as a weapon. Upset your cat by giving him the wrong food or sitting in his favourite armchair and he has a loaded weapon at each end to point, metaphorically speaking , at you.
He or she will usually wait until ten seconds before guests arrive for dinner, or you have just completed a massive spring clean, before gently, but noisily, depositing the contents of his or her stomach in the most unlikely and inaccessible places.
Most cats I have been owned by usually chose round the back of the television where they could vomit happily onto all the trailing wires making it well nigh impossible to clean up with the 'shut eyes, fifteen feet of kitchen roll' method. And that's not even counting the possibility of electrocution.
I'm also fairly certain that cats can quite deliberately induce vomiting when you aren't giving them enough fuss or admiration.
They only have to lean forward, crane their necks and perform a little dry heaving to have everyone's instant attention, with screams of 'quick the cat's being sick' and a stampede to get to the offending animal, grab it and get it outside before you get a shoeful.
Or worse. My father used to chant a little rhyme, which thoroughly annoyed my mother - 'Quick, quick, the cat's been sick. Where?where?, under the chair. Hasten, hasten, fetch a basin. Too late, too late, all in vain. The cat has licked it up again.' All too horribly true on occasions.
I once had a cat who could have got into the Guinness Book of Records under an entry for the most unusual place a cat has thrown up/in/on/under.
Her tally included the centre of a white candlewick bedspread, my husband's cricket boots (both), ditto cricket box (once), in an ornamental house plant more than once, in the bird bath and in the middle of a completed jigsaw puzzle (I think it was Westminster Abbey) .
Her most notorious performance was, however, one evening when, while we were out of the room, she vomited down the back of the television set, which being warm, spread the aroma quickly round the house and eventually, after much sniffing, led us to find the evidence.
Not, however, before the slither of descending Kit-e-Kat and gastric juices had land on, and blown, a valve.
Just you try explaining to a television engineer why the television smells like a fish paste factory.
The same dear creature also had a penchant for late night vomiting so that you would wake up and hear the faint sounds of retching.
More than one person, rushing out of the bedroom, quickly found the evidence in the dark with bare feet and did a Torvill and Dean down the hall.
Worst of all, of course, is when you hear the noise and fail to react in time.
Then the offending animal walks past you , totally unconcerned with a 'who me', I've not been sick', expression on its face. You know, however, that it has, and sooner or later you are going to find it's little gift and you pray you didn't leave the wardrobe door open.'
That was the column then - and certainly more sick has gone under the bridge since.
Our two new juvenile boys are learning the art. Oscar, the grey and white, got into the act the other day, stealing a rollmop herring off my plate, rushing off with it and gobbling it down. Five minutes later the dry heaving started, followed by the inevitable deposits all over the hall. Followed by him returning to try to get the second rollmop.
As I watched him I thought how he reminded me of adolescents who, having drunk a pint or two suddenly find they need to rush outside in the direction of the loos, or, in many cases, behind one of those peculiarly hardy bushes pubs plant in their car parks which seem totally unaffected by regular dousings of unmentionable liquids.
Back they come, all smiling and ready for more. ' Sick? Me? Course not. Don't be ridiculous.' Oscar looked very much the same.
PS. Browsing by the pet counter in the supermarket I noticed a preparation to rid cats of furballs. I hope it doesn't induce vomiting - can you imagine anything worse - little round hairy balls of sick rolling their way all over the floor and, heaven forbid, under the furniture. That would be too much..