My Cats (Ages 18 to 38!)

I currently have three cats Mischief and Mayhem (The not-so Terrible Twins), and The Evil Overlord Zebulon (Minus one fang), and an occasional fourth if you count Trouble, a little cat the others invite in of dinner. I never had a cat growing up, I lived with two uncles and a grandfather who were very anti-cat. My grandfather was a keen gardener, I did everything he could to keep cats away. We always had dogs, though. Years later my two uncles ended up with living with a cat, which my mum owned, the dear departed Lucy. They very begrudgingly grew to love her.

So I left home at eighteen, I think it was less than a week before a pretty tabby kitten called Vellcrow appeared. She spent a lot of time stuck to my leg or claiming curtains hence the name. She was an amazing cat, playful and friendly. She must have moved house with us more than ten times over the years!

Then soon after getting Vellcrow, a friend gave us a now third-hand Persian cat named Leelou, she liked to blow snot on your feet, and hours’ worth of grooming, would be undone in minutes, as she licked herself back into one big tangle. Then came Angus, a black cat with much attitude. You could carry him around like a baby, but would also pee on anything he viewed as his, including me! He also had a very intimate relationship with an old duvet cover and a toy Dracula doll.

Vellcrow spawned 4 kittens (yes we learned the neutering lesson the hard way!), she was a great and very proud mum. She would carry the kittens to us, with a look what I have done, attitude. The kittens were originally named little-vellcrow (brown tabby, white feet), little-angus (black), and feet (grey tabby, white feet) and no feet (grey tabby). We ended up keeping little-vellcrow, briefly named Duck and finally called Moragg. And no feet was briefly named Squid and finally called Hamish. Poor little Moragg was the runt of the litter, she had a bit of her nose missing so sneezed all time, and was very small. She only lived about 5 years. We loved her despite her problems.

Hamish was a big, friendly, plush ball of stripey love. Possibly my favourite cat ever. He had a pet toy hedgehog that he would carry around and sing to. He lived with us until he was old and slow, still miss him.

For two years we added a beautiful but very vocal gentleman called Dorian, he was a very posh stray. An Oriental Shorthair. He was very much an outside cat, we when we got moved into a tower block he went to live with a friend and her daughter. He now shouts at them instead! Then finally we come back around to Zebulon and the twins. I would adopt more cats in a heartbeat. I’ll tell you about the dogs and snakes another time!