Carly really adores cats. The question is do they adore her? Or admire her. Of course not. Dogs always adore their owners. Cats clearly don’t. Cats come and go as they please. They seem to change owners at the drop of a hat. Actually, very often they have several owners on the go at any one time.
Whilst Carly admires this trait, she finds it irksome. She like to be the centre of their world. Actually, everyone’s world. But if she tries really hard, she can see it from the cats’ point of view. Carly is allowed to come and go as she pleases; to go to work, out for a walk or a cycle and away on holiday. She sometimes wonders if they want to join her as she often finds them in the suitcase when she is packing. They probably like the cool dark space a case affords. Carly considers why should the cats stick around for her for when she decides to return? Cats have their own territories and businesses to attend to. Just like Carly. So, her cats will do as they please. Hmmmmmmmmmmm thinks Carly. She does actually get it.
Carly realises cats are important in her life. They are grounding for her, particularly in this time of uncertainty. She always has had them coming up through the ranks. This means she has several cats on the go at any one time of different ages. So, when they pop off their mortal coil, Carly already has replacements in the wings. She learnt this early on. She was devastated when her first cat Mitzi went missing. She presumed this cat was taken by a restaurant. To go on their menu. She had no evidence for this. However, she decided to report Mitzi as missing to the police. Whilst mildly sympathetic, the officer told Carly that they don’t log missing cats. He said, “this was because cats was of an itinerant nature”. That was the last time Carly went to the police about any of her cats.
Next up was Hamlet. He was a big, fat cat who would lie around her neck like a fur collar. One memorable day, Carly came home from work. She was struggling with Hamlet in the cat basket, a toddler and a very large belly. This contained an eight-month-old unborn baby. When she arrived home the man from the organic box delivery scheme arrived simultaneously. He wanted to be helpful. Once he had put the beetroots, parsnips and turnips in the kitchen, he offered to bring in the cat basket for Carly. “Oh no” she replied somewhat aghast. “The cat is dead, and the house is hot and he will soon start to smell. But thanks”. Carly was pleased that she was firm and direct whilst being grateful but didn’t see why this man fled at such speed from the house.
Later she dug a hole for Hamlet, but this was hard as the garden was miniscule and very stony. This left Carly with only two cats: Boadicea and Spartacus.
But Sparty left soon after the second baby was born. This was a home water birth and Sparty did walk around the edge of the massive birth pool. But the commotion of a birth and a new-born proved too much for him and he fled never to be seen again.
Then followed a series of black and white cats called Ocean, Shadow and Ice respectively. And some other cats who were the rejected litter from one of Carly’s work colleagues, Jeanette. She bred hairless Sphinx cats and backcrossed them with moggies to strengthen their characteristics. Carly had some of the hairy versions; Jazzmine Juicy Inferno, Gilbert and Sinjan Billy.
By this stage, the family had a lurcher which is a collie/whippet cross. This dog Jake came as a puppy from Battersea. He was great with all of these cats. Every time a new kitten would arrive, Carly would slowly introduce them to Jake. But by the end, when Jake was old, he would raise one eyebrow as if to say, “here we go again” and then go back to sleep.
Carly introduced the family to a cat death ritual. They would be buried in the garden under a flowering bush. The colour of the flower would match the deceased cat’s fur as a reminder to the family. One day Griffid, who was an old ginger cat, died. Carly instructed her nanny to dig the grave which was difficult as the kittens Shir Khan and Shadow kept scurrying in and out of it in a rather disrespectful manner. The nanny had also failed to put Griffid into a curled-up position, so the grave had to be extended as rigor mortis had set in.
Carly picked up the children from school and they went home via a garden centre to buy an apricot rose bush. Their tradition was to bury cats under a matching flowering plant. She returned to find her husband checking if Griffid was indeed dead. He looked the same as he normally did with his ginger fur. Carly lifted him upside down and showed how he could be installed as toilet roll holder.
She knew this from a book called “101 Uses of a Dead Cat”. However, they decided it would be better to bury him instead. The children were encouraged to bury something of their own with Griffid in his grave. The youngest child put in a necklace she didn’t really like; the middle son wrote out a song the family used to sing about Griffid. “Griffid the tiger, Griffid the lion, Griffid the mighty friend of Jake” and the oldest one who was hitting adolescence wrote a note to him and folded it up. Without anyone watching, Carly took a look at it. “Griffid, I have no idea where you have gone but it’s got to be better than here”. She quickly folded it and replaced in the grave with the cat and put the apricot rose bush on top.
As new cats arrived, Carly asked her children to find them suitable names. They called them Stinky Miranda Tallulah (known as Mandy), Jaja-Binx-Et-Mouse-Chicken-Legs.com (called Binx) and Gus short for Asparagus during a vegetarian phase.
Carly adores her cats. Some have long names, some short and some ridiculous. All have nicknames and they keep her grounded.
