It occurred to me the other day that it’s almost a whole year since I started writing this blog and I have not yet shared with you much about Lily, my cat. This, despite the fact that the blog is entitled A Girl and her Cat Write. It seemed strange so please allow me to introduce her to you.
This is my favourite photo of Lily. I think it captures her playful nature and her beauty, all in one beautiful shot.
I often write while sitting up in bed, last thing at night. Lily likes to come and sit with me, checking my spelling. If she spots something she’s not happy about, she takes a swipe at my pen to interrupt me. Needless to say, this can prove detrimental to productivity!
This led me to think about how different my writing might be, if at all, if she weren’t there.
The benefits of owning pets are well-documented. Companionship for the lonely and reducing depression and high blood pressure for the afflicted are just some reasons why millions of us in the UK keep cats, dogs and other animals around us. For most of us, they are irreplaceable members of the family.
I used to be a petsitter in a previous life. It was hard work and extremely challenging at times, but it taught me much about the nature of people and how they interact with their pets.
In August 2006, I spent an fascinating week in the home of a lady who breeds Burmese and Egyptian Mau cats. She was away on her first holiday in fourteen years, leaving me in charge of her brood – seven females and four males altogether, including her Grand Champion stud who lived in an outhouse.
It was as I popped out to feed him one particularly gloomy British summer morning that I saw a little black and white bundle under a tree in the garden. It had been raining all night and this poor kitten was in the latter stages of hypothermia. I took her into the house and tried to give her some warm milk. Her tiny eyes remained closed and there was a half-hearted attempted to open her mouth but that was all. Without a second thought, I rushed her to the nearest vet.
The vet’s brow furrowed. He took her temperature then quickly passed her to the nurse, instructin her to set up an intravenous drip and get the patient warm. He then turned back to me. “Look, you’ve done your best but it doesn’t look good. She’s barely four weeks old and too young to be so far from mum. Just to warn you.”
The mood with which I left the surgery that day matched the dark gloomy skies. For the next few hours, I could concentrate on nothing else. I had never had the opportunity to save an animal’s life until that moment. I didn’t want my desperate efforts to be in vain.
Back at the house, the brood took my mind off her a little until the call came from the surgery.
“Good news!” the nurse cried. “Your kitten’s going to be okay!”
She was still weak when I took her home and couldn’t eat solids for a few days but she was tiny, gorgeous and mine. I was completely smitten.
These days, her life is less dramatic. She’s approaching middle age much more gracefully than I am, for sure! However, after every meal, she still comes to my lap, rubs her head against my chin and gazes up at me as if to say “Thanks for everything, Mum”.
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