Esk

red tabby point Balinese
born
08 August 1997

What can we say about Esk? She’s arrogant, raucous, and spiky, and we love her to bits. We refer to her as the “apricot cat”, as the coat on her back is wonderful shades of apricots and cream. She has almond-shaped sapphire-blue eyes, and a magnificent apricot-coloured plumed tail, which we can use to judge just how bad a mood she’s in (it varies from murderous to simple ill-temper - the worse the mood, the bushier the tail. Very handy). And she could sulk for England.

You can mollify her slightly by brushing her with a Zoom Groom (a sort of rubber brush - hard to describe, really), when clouds of fur come off her, and cause allergies in people all over the village Which pleases her enormously, of course.

Esk has a dreadful voice - it sounds like a corncrake. Although when she’s doing her Lady Chatterley impression, she makes a most extraordinary bark, which means that she wants Pete to make a huge fuss of her. She really is extremely hoity-toity, and likes to use the front door to go in and out - ideally, no doubt, she’d have a footman and a red carpet. And a lorgnette - we’re convinced she’d suit a lorgnette.

Esk and her lifetime companion Ptep emigrated to Norwich at Christmas 2007 to live with our daughter and grandson.

Sometimes she forgets she’s meant to be a lady, and turns into a right old tart - full of contradictions, is Esk. But then, after all, she is a cat …