Where do I start?

I’ve been a cat lover all my life – in fact it started with a cat loving me before I was old enough to choose – my mum told me that next door’s big ginger cat used to come in the kitchen window and watch her bathing me when I was just a baby – and the day I rocked my pram so hard it fell over (babies used to be put out in the garden to sleep in their prams and get fresh air) he came into the house and pestered her till she wondered what was wrong!

Anyway I’ll start with our latest cat – a friend was going off for a 6 month visit to Oz and NZ and had arranged for someone to have her 14 year old cat, then at the last minute – a fortnight before she was due to go, they changed their minds!  Poor Maureen was desperate as it was beginning to look like a trip to the vet was the only answer.  The rehoming centres wouldn’t take her saying she was too old to be rehomed.  So what could I do?  We already had 3 cats (more of them later) but there was room in our home and our hearts for another so a few weeks ago Angelica came to live with us.  It’s been hard for her because she’s always been an only cat but she’s settling well now, she’s a tortie so she’s a bit nervous and quirky but we’re used to that as we already have one tortie – they really are temperamental!  But she’s a sweet little cat and has already found a nickname, we call her ‘Lady’ cos she is a little lady and anyway, Angelica is a bit of a mouthful!

Nov 2009

Chester – and how to catch a mouse….

Chester is, in a word, adorable!  I know I shouldn’t have favourites among the animals that live with us but – I do!  He’s a hulking great tom – well an ex tom – he’s three years old but thinks he’s still a kitten and he loves to entertain.  He’s always doing something amusing and just when you think you’ve seen it all he finds something new – when he’s not asleep that is, cos he’s the most amazingly laid-back cat, he’ll sleep anywhere but preferably upside down with his paws in the air!

I find it touching when he thinks I’m his mum and climbs up my front and sucks my jumper, and when he lies on top of me in bed and pats my face with a gentle paw just to make sure I know he’s there – not that I could miss him as it’s like having a giant purring hot water bottle!

It’s not quite so entertaining when he brings in live mice and lets them loose in the living room and I live in fear of discovering that an unnoticed pregnant one has made its home in the sofa and given birth to a whole family.  It’s unlikely though because with four cats in the house, at least two at any one time will let me know if there’s wildlife in the house and then it’s just a matter of catching them.  I’ve found from experience that the so-called ‘humane’ mousetraps are well named, they’re so mouse friendly they don’t work so I’ve invented my own.  It’s a cardboard box with a little doorway cut into it.  I place the box alongside the skirting board and chase the mouse (or let the cats chase it) in the right direction and with a bit of luck it goes for the safety of the dark little hole and disappears into the box, whereupon I close the flap and remove the mouse to a good release spot where it can disappear under the shed where the cats can’t go – seemples!

Feb 09

Harley – the Garbo cat!

Harley is a tortie – apparently that explains everything!  She was a friendly cuddly kitten and loved everyone – to the extent that we overheard the children next door and their friends having a conversation that went like this…

“I wonder if Harley’s coming out to play?”

“Who’s Harley?”

“Harley’s a cat – everybody knows Harley! “

But as she grew up she changed, became very jumpy and nervous, until even we are not allowed to stroke her – downstairs.  However, when she’s ensconced in solitary stae on our bed, sorry her bed, she turns into an entirely different creature!  She loves to be stroked and groomed, she offers ‘kisses’ so ferocious you wonder if your face is bruised, then she snuggles up and purrs!  Until she’s had enough, when she will turn away and lie down with her back to you clearly letting the world know that she ‘wants to be alooooone’ – hence the title!   The only time she pays us any attention downstairs is when she wants feeding, as and soon as she’s got what she wants she goes back to ignoring us, but she’s so beautiful we can forgive her anything, ok cat lovers are daft but it’s good way to be!

She was the first cat I’d had for many years that was a hunter – but not the last!  When Chester arrived as a kitten she took him in hand just like a mum, and taught him to hunt as well, bringing in mice and birds and showing him how to catch them!  Now there are two of them at it – I wouldn’t mind them bringing in dead ones – but they’re usually very much alive and I end up having to catch them, thanks Harley!

Nov 2010

I vant to be aloooone.......