Keeping cats is widely touted as being good for your health. Here are some of the ways that you may benefit from having one as a pet:

• You feel less anxious and stressed. Cortisol levels (stress hormone) are reduced and seratonin levels (the chemical associated with well-being) increase.
• In one study, cat owners had lower blood pressure and lower heart rates during rest than people who did not own a cat.
• Therapists have been known to prescribe a cat as a way of recovering from depression. No one loves you more unconditionally than your cat. A cat will listen to you talk for as long as you want.
• If you exercise with your cat, you’ll both benefit. Wave a piece of string while you do a step aerobics routine. Your cat will get a healthy workout chasing the string, and you’ll be thoroughly entertained.

I would like to take issue with all this rot about cats being good for your health, because my life is having years shaved off it by the nut-job antics of my two. I don’t know about improving my health, they’re doing serious damage to it!

The reality of life with cats:

• ‘Unconditional love’? No. You exist only to open pouches of food or doors
• You can talk to your cat as long as you like, but you stand a greater chance of the wall acknowledging your presence than the cat ever will.
• If you do allow them the run of the house overnight, it is inevitable that they will choose the small area between your head and the headboard to sleep in.
• Clean it and it’ll have mucky cat feet on it seconds.
• The first thing you deal with on many a morning is cat sick.
• The second thing you deal with is feeding the cat, which appears to be close to starvation if the fuss they’re making is anything to go by.  You open the pouch and the cat slopes off in disgust. Apparently you have inadvertently served up road-kill.
• Ironically, the first thing you deal with on returning from work is dead stuff in your kitchen. Or worse, live things that have run under the bookcase.
• The second thing is the whining starving thing – again
• Then you find the cat sick.
• A garment folded and left on a surface to be worn when you return from work is considered a sleeping place.
• By all means do the chasing the string thing, but be prepared to be the one running about like an idiot while the cat sits and watches you.
• Water boarding is second only in torture compared to driving two yowling cats to the cattery.
• And don’t even start on the ‘giving a cat a pill.’ thing.  Any vet who even suggests it might be something I can do will be left the cat to attempt it themselves – without safety gauntlets.

So no; sharing a house with two cats is not the therapeutic, calming experience the “health professionals” suggest it should be.  My blood pressure is regularly in orbit because of something one of them brought in.  Last year we had a 5 day running saga with a live mouse, which ended up with its own hashtag on Twitter - #mousegate

The next time you see a health website extolling the virtues of pet ownership, ignore it and buy yourself a big bar of chocolate instead.  OK, so you might need to diet a little more, but at least you won’t be up to your eyeballs in cat vomit at 4.45am.

And walls make far better listeners than cats. Just ask Shirley Valentine.