Love, Claude & Jolene

Last November, I briefly introduced two new arrivals to my life: Claude and Jolene. We adopted this bonded pair of cats from Warwickshire Cats Protection. 

Since that rather turbulent car journey home, our cats abandoned their old names – Claude (white and grey male) was previously called Snowy and Jolene (black female) was called Misty. I have a little chuckle when I think about these old names. Claude is definitely not a ‘Snowy’ and ‘Misty’ isn’t sassy enough for Jolene. My partner definitely gets the credit for their names though. I wanted to call Jolene ‘Daisy’ but she definitely ain’t a ‘Daisy’!

The reason I’m banging on about my cats – and, yes, I have indeed become one of those cat people who constantly takes photos and videos of them both – is because, through their endlessly entertaining ways, they’ve inspired a new cartoon collection.

Seasonal stints

We picked Claude and Jolene up in October. As I alluded to, it was a rather painful car journey and I think we all thought it was a miracle that we’d survived it. On top of that, in addition to cleaning up a couple of traumatised cats that day, we also had to rescue an injured pigeon from our garden. As unlikely as it sounds, I promise that this had nothing to do with the cats. It’s a side story that deserves more airtime but, to give you the short version, I somehow led an injured pigeon into our garden. After several attempts, I managed to catch it and put it in a large box. Then we had to work out what to do to help it. Turns out, local Facebook groups are absolutely top notch for finding help on ‘the day of rest’ if you end up with an injured pigeon in your garden! 

The next couple of days involved Claude spending most of his time either down the gap by the washing machine, in the gap by the sofa or on top of the boiler. Jolene was more adventurous but she was only really interested in food (and, to some extent, still is!) Over time, they began to settle more and I started to see their true characters.

As Halloween was approaching, I decided to try and draw a simple – but suitably spooky – cartoon featuring this cat couple. I mainly wanted to get the cat shapes right. Drawing a simple cat turned out to be quite a challenge (they kept looking like dogs and squirrels…) but I got there in the end!

Later in the year, as my Christmas holidays started, I thought it would be fitting to draw Claude and Jolene in a more festive scene. They both love to play with toys and they both always investigate new objects in the house. Over Christmas, various boxes would suddenly appear in our living room and they always had a good sniff and rubbed their cheeks against them. 

Claude – when he’s not sleeping – loves to jump over/onto things. He regularly jumps on Jolene and sometimes even leaps over her. So I knew he needed to be crouched, ready to pounce. Sassy Jolene, on the other hand, is all about the ball toys we have. When it comes to anything else, she goes hot and cold. One minute, she’ll go crazy and will start scratching and running around the toy (or box). Next, she’ll sit next to the toy (or box) and will timidly reach out to pat it. I thought I’d save the ball toys for another time so I drew her reaching her paw out to touch the box. I guarantee you that if you could see a ‘what happened next’ drawing, she would be scratching the presents, they would all have toppled over and she might even be trying to climb up the tree!

Daily Routines

Both kitties definitely have some entertaining quirks and what better way to demonstrate these than to draw out various aspects of their daily routines! Here’s what I’ve done so far.

7:00am: The start to the day is what initially inspired me to draw Claude and Jolene’s daily routines. It makes me laugh every morning. Bleary-eyed and groggy, my partner and I take it in turns to give them their breakfast. Whether it’s him or me, one thing is guaranteed. At 6.55am when we wander into the kitchen to dish up the goods, Jolene can be heard meowing right behind the door of their room downstairs. 

I have absolutely no idea how long she sits behind the door for but I have a suspicion it could be a long time – she’s like an old lady waiting by the door to be picked up to see the family (my grandma used to be like that!) Though we don’t know for sure, using some detective skills, I’m confident that Claude usually stays in his bed for a little longer. How do I know this? His bed is usually still warm when I go into the room.

As soon as they smell the food being dished up, Jolene’s meowing gets more persistent and she starts scratching the door. Claude also meows every now and then but he usually just parrots Jolene and I’m convinced that he’s simply mesmerised by the smell of the food, jumps off his bed and joins Jolene by the door. The cartoon captures this precise moment.

What happens next is arguably more entertaining. As soon as we open the door, they both spill out into the hallway. Jolene looking up at the food bowls and meowing like a demon, Claude sometimes leaping over her and almost running around in circles. That was a bit too ambitious for me to draw but you can see a video of this on Instagram.

9:00am: Later in the morning, I normally go and check on the cats. Almost every time I go down the stairs to their room, I hear a small thud as Jolene jumps off the sofa and goes to the door. There’s only really one reason why Jolene wouldn’t be at the door when I open it: she’s outside. But that’s quite rare during the day!

As I open the door, Jolene usually pops her head round, uses her paw to push past the door, makes a very odd noise (like someone saying ‘and where have you been’) and then legs it past me. Claude, on the other hand, is usually asleep in his bed, on the sofa, or, more bizarrely, in the utility area next to the sink. 

After experiencing this part of their daily routines a few times, I genuinely started to think that Jolene must never sleep. Before we got them, I’d read that cats can sleep for up to 16 hours a day. Claude was definitely sleeping quite a bit but I’d never seen Jolene asleep. More recently, I’ve been proven wrong. Jolene definitely sleeps but it’s very light – as soon as there’s any kind of noise, she opens her eyes and tries to work out what she’s missing out on!

Coming up…

More cartoons coming soon. I’ve noted down some ideas for other aspects of Claude and Jolene’s daily routines and I can confirm that there’s definitely a lot of source material!!! They’ve also inspired a birthday card for my ‘Little Sister’ who I support through the Big Brothers Big Sisters project 😊