It occurred to me that I have a boatload of pictures of past cats, and that I've never shown you them!
This is Fred - he was my brother's cat, and after my brother died he bonded to me. And yes, he was a chunky fellow!
While we had Fred, we got Jake. He was the softest cat I have ever encountered -
so silky! Fred and Jake got on marvellously, even though (or perhaps because!) Jake was a complete kleptomaniac
I moved to America when I was 18 and soon Dishrag came into my life:
He was a complete people cat. He'd been thrown out of a car as a kitten, and a lady saw it happen and nursed him back to health. Unfortunately she also worked overtime a lot and felt he was too lonely, so she gave him to us
He used to come running whenever I sounded scared or sad, to make sure I was ok.
While we lived in the house we got Dishrag in, our friend had this litter and we intended to get one of the kits:
The mummy cat was really small, her name was Where Kitty? because when she was born her mother had had her under the house and the owner couldn't find her, so she had to follow the sound of mewling and call "Wheeeeeere kitty?" a lot to make the kitten meow
At first, we were going to get this one, we'd named him Gandalf:
Unfortunately, one of the past cats in that house had died of distemper, and apparently it can hang around for a long time. Gandalf and his tortie sister were the first to go
All of the kittens got sick, and only 3 of them survived:
Yes, DM, I
know! We were going to get the one on the left, who was always a bit pinker than his brothers (one of whom always did this:
which made me really paranoid about putting my feet in my boots!) but unfortunately he escaped from the house and was hit by a car in the driveway
The other two were spoken for (one stayed there, the other went to the owner's son), so we came away with no kittens. We also moved to a new house, to save my ex's parents from gambling-induced bankruptcy.
This is my ex-mother-in-law's cat, Samwise Gamgee Moonglow (
)
It's not a very good picture, but the only better one I have has her in it as well, and I don't think I have her permission to post it as she hates me
Unfortunately, she never allowed Sam and Dishrag to sort out their pecking order - whenever Dishrag got the upper hand in a scrap she started hitting him
and he decided never to fight with Sam again unless Sam displayed aggressive behaviour towards my son (in which case a black ball of fury came roiling out of our bedroom, consuming everything in its path!).
When they moved out (
big relief) we adopted Manfish (the name's a long story, don't ask) from some people who abused her and then wondered why she was quiet and withdrawn
She was positively tiny, but got along with Dishrag
really well - he used to run through the lounge so she could jump onto his back and ride him
and they both loved it
Unfortunately I had to leave them when I left America
My ex kicked Manfish out when she became ill, because he didn't want to pay a vet bill. Luckily his brother's moved in with him since and has promised me he'll make absolutely sure nothing like that will happen to my Dishie.
When I lived in Scotland, I ended up nicking Rajah:
She had been neglected to the point where she wouldn't've survived another week in the cold. I nursed her back to health before having to give her up to the Cats' Protection because I wasn't allowed to have pets, but at least she had a better chance at making it...
Hope you enjoyed
