Moggie Madness

Like many cat owners, Mojo and Rosie are not the first cats I’ve ever owned. My first cat that I can ever remember was a lovely black moggie called Sam. He was jet black all over and sweet natured. He was always around and I have a lovely photo of him, lying next to the bassinette when I was a baby. He unfortunately developed renal disease and was put down when I was still fairly young.

Puss was the next cat to enter our lives. He was a stray and simply came over the fence one day and decided our house was a nice place to live. He was long-haired and always looked to me like he was wearing a tuxedo. He loved sitting on the piano, listening to my sister play. He was fairly long in the tooth by the time he came to live with us - the vet guessed that he would be older than 10 yo. He stayed with us for quite a while, then one day vanished as quickly as he came. By the time he left us, we think he was edging close to 18 years. Still, I wonder if perhaps he thought his job was done and it was time to move on to another family.

My grandad found Fluffy when he was a tiny ball of fluff and could fit in the palm of his hand. He’d been abandoned by his mum/owners and so he adopted him. My nanna wasn’t really one for cats, so he was strictly outdoors and was only allowed to come up onto the landing for feeding. Eventually, Fluffy had the run of the house, well at least on the ground….only being allowed up onto furniture if it happened to be on somebody’s lap. Being so young when pop found him, he was hardly well socialised with other cats or with people. He was definitely a feisty character and always getting into scraps with other cats. I remember more than one occasion as a child when I would be walking down the side of the house and I would hear the bell on his collar. Even though I knew he was around, he would always surprise me - launching out from the bushes and latching himself onto my leg. Still, he mellowed out considerably as he aged and when my grandad passed, it wasn’t long before Fluffy went to join him.

And then there was Charlie. Technically she wasn’t my cat, she was my auntie’s but she was such a gorgeous cat. A bit aloof but affectionate nonetheless. She was another classy girl and very immaculately kept. When I look at photos of her, I see so much of Rosie in her - except Rosie is a little more clumsy than Charlie ever was. I think perhaps that’s what drew me to Rosie when I adopted her from Animal Welfare League.

It’s no small wonder that I have such a love of cats now, considering my whole life I have been exposed to them. They each had their own personality and funny little quirks…people who say that cats have no personality just haven’t lived long enough with a cat in my opinion.

Tags: cats, nostalgia

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 6:07 pm and is filed under cats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.