I shouldn't laugh but

Firstly, let me say that Doug needs his sleep; he's a growing lad. So, on nights when the boys have slept well (for the past three nights, in fact), I'm not too bothered about pulling the early shift and letting Doug have a bit of a lie-in.

However, the cats seem to have other ideas about allowing him to have some kip. On past occasions, they've decided to have a scrap on top of him, practice some weird cat-athon around the bedroom until he wakes up and kicks them out, or just sit on him miaowing loudly. And once awake, Doug finds it pretty much impossible to get back to sleep.

This morning Monty decided to trump all previous efforts entirely and bring him a gift of a live bird. When Doug finally managed to catch the bird and take it downstairs, Monty grabbed it out of his hands halfway down the stairs causing it to escape into the boys' room and thus continue the mad chase. Eventually, the bird was caught (not by the cat) and ejected through the front door, followed by the cat at lightning speed.

I only caught the end of this soap opera as Doug rather grumpily relayed the whole sorry tale to me in the hallway.

"So, you won't be going back to sleep then?" I asked. "!!£$?££!!!" was the response.