Salt-licks for cats

I went to a Catholic boarding school for all but the last year of high-school - as a day pupil (thank god! They had to eat vegetables and custard!).

The school was situated in what was then a semi-rural area and had its own farm. The farm was run by religious brothers who wore khaki overalls and battered slouch hats and drove an old dusty green Land Rover. It was very strange to see them on the rare occasion that they donned their religious habits.

Because I had to wait almost an hour after school before the infrequent bus home arrived I often used to spend the time hanging around the farm. It was very interesting for a kid who grew up in the inner city. Huge-seeming, clattery-hooved cows got milked in sheds (and delightfully let gush forth torrents of green cow shit that splattered gloriously on the concrete!) and squealing orange and black-spotted baby pigs in pens got doled out cabbage slops from kero tins and lengths of wood got sawn creamy smooth and straight in the old leather-belt driven saw as the evening sun slanted through the open windows high up in the corrugated iron mill.

One of the things I saw during those fascinating evenings was cows greedily licking "salt-licks" - blocks of frosty white fortified salt laid out in the lush green grass of the paddocks.

The other night, when I was aroused from ponderings over a report for work to find Chicory had discovered my half-eaten ginger nut biscuit (you know the ones that will break all but the strongest teeth!), I recalled those "salt-licks".

She slobbered round and round the ginger nut trying to crack it with her sharp but perilously needle-thin teeth (No! No! Pussy! You mustn't!) but fortunately gave up and resorted instead to giving it a good salivery licking.

The little cow!