Zool

chocolate ticked tabby Burmilla

23 May 1999 - 01 October 2003

1 October 2003
I can’t believe this - she was sitting on the garden wall this morning when I left, and I laughed at her and told her not to try and get in the car, because she loved cars, and would leap in them at any opportunity. which has proved to be her downfall - I got home from Bracknell to find a message on the answering machine from the vet. She’d been hit by a car, and killed instantly.

Zool, a Burmilla, was an extraordinary little beast - a small, plush tart, with something of the bordello in her every movement, and somehow as ancient as a very ancient thing. She had a look to her that was really quite scary. And she was always there - I swear she could materialise from nowhere. And we could hear a very faint “ning” when she appeared, so we often called her Ning. She used to descend from whatever heights she had materialised at with a Monica Seles oof and thud - she was the heaviest cat for her weight I’ve known.

she had developed a habit of climbing under the duvet, and we would wake up to find a velveteen cat curled up between us. And she - how can I put this? - liked to spectate. We sometimes expected her to hold up a scorecard from the end of the bed. She absolutely hated to be picked up, and would flail in a plush manner until you put her down again. And she had the quietest voice of any cat I’ve ever known - mostly all you’d get was a very faint squeak. her absolute favourite place was the loft, and she would sit on the bannister waiting for the hatch to open so she could disappear up there, only emerging at her own convenience, covered in cobwebs. of all the Tribe, she seemed to be the one that stole people’s hearts - I once caught a friend trying to smuggle her out of the house under his jacket.

she was vile and horrid and evil and downright nasty to the other cats and totally wonderful and I’m not sure how long it will be before we stop looking out for her or wondering on a night if she’ll curl up on Pete’s pillow and wash his hair.

we’ll miss her more than I can say - she was a fabulous cat, with bags of character (most of it bad, it must be said). And I think it’s a tribute to her personality that Pete and I have already said we must get another Burmilla when we’ve got over losing her (in fact, as I write this on 16 November, we are awaiting the arrival of two more) . Although they won’t be Ning :(