Still, small voice

Do you have a little voice? I don't mean "do you speak quietly?" but rather: does your mind offer you quiet, gentle, sometimes almost imperceptible suggestions whose effect would be to keep you out of trouble if you heeded them?

I say "mind" for want of a better term, and because my little voice does indeed go on inside my head, but you could just as well call it your conscience, or experience, subconscious, or (as I prefer) Spirit guide.

It's a very easy voice to ignore. Often it presents itself as only a fleeting thought. You have to be quick to catch it, and it's all too easy to miss it altogether, or dismiss its message by thinking "oh, it'll be alright" or by telling yourself not to be so silly. I'd like to say I've learned to trust my voice, but too often all I've learned is the ability to look back and think: "I should have listened to my voice." Like the time I was taking some unwanted clutter to the charity shop. Only a few items - some bagged, some not - but among them three carving knives, two of which were the serrated "Kitchen Devil" type. As I struggled to pick everything up in one go to avoid making two trips between shop and car, my voice told me quite clearly: "If you pick those knives up like that, one of them will slip and cut your finger." Nah, I thought, I'll be fine. So I picked all three knives up in one hand, and one of them slipped and cut my finger.

I'm not claiming precognition of any kind; maybe it was "common sense" or experience, but I thought it would happen, and it did. Like I said, it's easy to miss. You have to maintain a state of awareness to tell the difference between regular thoughts and the little voice.

But yesterday, I didn't need any special state of awareness. My little voice yelled at me. Yesterday, we cooked the turkey crown we didn't have at Christmas. And because we wanted to enjoy thin slices of succulent breast today, we left it out on the cooker to cool before carving. "The cat can't get to it up there," said Nikki, "and anyway, she wouldn't be interested."

"Oh yes she can," screamed my little voice, "and she would!"

But I was very comfortably ensconced on the sofa with both my lovely daughters. We were watching episodes of Heroes back-to-back and even though I'd seen them all before, I didn't feel like moving. So I ignored my voice and, engrossed in the action, forgot all about the turkey.

Twenty minutes later an almighty crash from the kitchen disturbed our viewing. Footprints on the front of the cooker marked where our cat Mimi had stretched up to reach the turkey. Footprints on the draining board revealed where she had discovered an alternative route. The upturned roasting tin, lying by the bin and bleeding turkey fat all over the floor, indicated that she had jumped from draining board to cooker and knocked it off. And the turkey crown, one side chewed half away, didn't need a detective to determine that some time had elapsed between the jumping and the knocking off.

This is the cat who eats only biscuits and tinned tuna. Who turns her nose up at chicken, fish, and roast beef. We didn't know she loved turkey. But my little voice did. I am honestly getting better at listening to it. But I ain't there yet.