Certain of the Tribe – Lilith and Mustrum in particular – like to occasionally relieve themselves in the bathroom basin, or the kitchen sink (wee only, I hasten to add!). We don’t find this too much of an issue, to be honest; it’s easily cleaned, and if they must pee outside the trays, those probably the best places (the great outdoors excepted, of course).
We have a lovely, huge shower cubicle in our bathroom. We leave the doors open when it’s not in use, as otherwise it gets remarkably cold in there (the heat from the radiator cannot penetrate the glass doors). And, as Pete said, it was only a matter of time before one of the little darlings availed themselves of it, and used it as Yet Another Basin. Still, easily cleaned, as we have a dual head shower, one of which can be waved around. But of course, the basin is glass, and the kitchen sink is ceramic, while the shower tray is acrylic, and I really don’t want their dear little claws gouging scratches into it.
But it’s too damn cold to leave the shower doors shut …
One last photo of my much loved Iggy, innabox. Those golden pears survived, and are hanging above the fire.
I still miss him dreadfully, but I deal with it - I don’t go to look out the window for him thirty times a day, or keep listening for his distinctive rowl. But I was slightly overcome in Morrisons this week, when confronted with packs of mixed nuts in their shells. Neither P nor I eat nuts, but we always bought a pack for Igpuss, who liked to fish them out of their bowl and bat them round the room. Such little things undo us …
The rest of the Tribe are well and happy, and P is adamant that there will be no more kittens for a while, so we shall continue with a Gang of Four for the time being.
So we all wish you the compliments of the season, and may your cats be gifted with dew kissed baby grouse in 2013.
We went away to Wales for a few days, and now we have returned, and it is now 19 days since Iggy has been seen or heard. We have to accept that he is gone, and it is very hard indeed. He would have been 14 years old yesterday, 28th August, and just typing that has made me weep again.
Igor, to give him his proper name, came to us at the beginning of December 1998, the first of several Bengals we have had the honour to live with. The breeder said his stripes would turn into spots – they never did really, but we didn’t care a jot. He had a beautiful face, with wise eyes.
He was a clever cat, who could work out things like who was making the red laser dot dance across the floor, and how to open the microwave. He was also defined by his dignity, which he never, ever lost even under the most adverse of conditions, such as making an unorthodox descent from the fridge, or having his spotty tum scritched (which he loved). We always described him to people as a cat of gravitas and distinction, and he had a real presence.
Iggy loved warmth, and could be found following the sun round the house, and hogging all the heat from the woodburning stove, sitting so close to its glass door that his fur was actually touching it.
He did, of course, lead a life of tragedy, as evinced by his constant rowling, but he bore it with fortitude.
Pete and I have lived with many cats over the years, and have loved them all, but Iggy stole my heart the day I met him, and I find it so hard not to have been with him at the end. Go well, my beloved Igpuss – and good hunting, free of pain and restored to splendour.
Pete and I hurtled round to Pets At Home last night (new branch just opened at Anlaby Park, nice and handy for us), and purchased four collars, and identity barrels, for the remaining members of the Tribe, including the part time one. We didn’t buy one for Iggy, because we do truly believe he’s gone for good …
Anyway, they were bought individual carefully chosen collars:
Ron: as he is black, utterly black, with green eyes, we bought him a black velvet collar with luminous green eyes. You can only see the green eyes on this.
Mustrum has a black velvet collar with silver reflective fishies on it. And very splendid he looks too.
Henry has a grey webbing collar with lime green and teal dots on it, which claims to be reflective, and
Lilith has got a leopard print one (we had to, really, dont you think)? Of course, she still hasn’t come home, so I’m going to go up the road later today, knock on the madwoman’s door, and demand she hands my cat over.
Despite my misgivings, they all seemed to accept the collars fine, and to my amazement all three are still wearing them this morning. We shall see …
There was a knock on the door this morning, and the mad old bat* from down the road was stood there. “Do you own a white cat?” she asked. Well, we did buy a cream cat, but I don’t like to say we actually own any of our cats. But that seemed a bit semantic, so I just said “Yes”, and worried that she was going to tell me that Lil was injured, or worse. Coming on top of Iggy’s disappearance (yes, he is still gone) that would be very hard to take.
Anyhoo, she has been feeding Lilith because she “thought she was a stray”. Right. Looking it up today, it is just 10 days past two years since I had this conversation with her (see here). She’s only been going walkabout again for a few weeks, so I guess this woman forgot (to give her the benefit of the doubt). She seemed quite confused, firstly saying that Lil came in through her catflap, and then that she “let her out to have a wee”. I have asked her yet again not to feed her, and I’m going out this evening to purchase a collar. I don’t like them, and I’m not sure Lily will actually wear it, but perhaps it will remind this seemingly senile woman (no, not me) that the cream cat is not a stray, and in fact lives somewhere else. With us.
*well, she might not be , but she damn well seems like it.
We haven’t seen Iggy since Friday. More worryingly, we haven’t heard him, which is very unusual; he’s a vocal cat, and calls a lot when he’s out and about. I went over and spoke to Kath and Frank this morning, and they haven’t seen him either, and Frank has been out looking for him.
Also, to add fuel to our fears, the other cats have been slightly out of sorts. I’m convinced that cats sense far more than we give them credit for, and so … do they know what’s going on? Do they just miss him?
In any event, I’m close to giving up hope. He’s old, ill and in pain, and perhaps he just gave up and took himself off somewhere. But the not knowing is very hard.
As I mentioned, Iggy is spending a lot of time away from home, and yesterday my suspicion is confirmed. The elderly couple over the road are feeding him. I went over yesterday while Kath was in her front yard, and asked them not to do it any more, explained that he was quite ill and we needed him to come home for his medication, and that we’d spent £90 at the vet last week, which was a bit of a waste if we couldn’t actually get him home for pills.
“Oh” she said. “We thought you didn’t want him any more.” Which is just a bloody *nonsense*, isn’t it? They knew where we live, they knew where Iggy lived, and they must have heard us call and call him, and even pick him up from their front step. I do wish people wouldn’t feed other folks’ cats … Anyway, they say they won’t any more, but I’m not sure I actually believe them.
On the same subject, we’re not seeing much of Lilith at the moment either. Now, we know she has a penchant for, shall we say, sharing her favours – see this entry - so we weren’t too worried, although we do miss the vile baggage when she’s not around. The other night I woke up about 3.a.m, to see her sitting on Pete’s chest of drawers. I actually woke him to see her, as I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a dream, and he clearly remembered the next day.
Lo and behold, last night she burst through the cat flap, completely wired. Wouldn’t let us even touch here, looking completely feral. We gave her a pouch of wet food (a rare treat in this house, as they are fed on bikkit, mostly), and she positively ravened it down. She’s gone again now, but at least we know she’s OK, and she’ll be home when the weather turns. But I might do a bit of leafleting and ask people not to feed her, please.
A chap really doesn’t want to be at home at the moment, and we don’t see him much. Whenever I can, I grab him and he gets fed a pill wrapped in chickie! (and the others all get chickie! too, obviously), but he’s nowhere near his full dose of kidney medication.
Our feeling was that the arthritis is getting worse – he seems to be spreading his back toes, perhaps to better take the weight, and I think he’s roaming his turf for his last summer; I know that sounds mawkish, but …
Anyway, out of kidney pills and horse medication, I managed to catch him yesterday and put him in the cat box, then phoned the vet for an appointment. Fortunately they had one in 15 minutes time, and so we bundled him into the car and took him over to Sarah. She confirmed what we thought; he’s getting worse. Which is inevitable, of course – he can’t get *better* from what he has. She agrees with us; we shall endeavour to keep him comfortable as long as we can, but that’s it.
So if a chap wants to roam the Dukeries, who am I to stop him? I’d rather have him home safe, but his desires come first.
Cost: £91.95 yesterday. I daren’t add it up :)
Now, here’s someone who knows about that! I’d show her photo, but she has disabled linking, but do go and read the piece.
Beautiful. And makes me roar with laughter every time :)
