Batteries not included

I don’t think we are ever going to get over losing little Gremlin. I accepted that he would eventually have more serious consequences from his IBD, but to suddenly go down with kidney failure was a shock… and so close to Christmas. Again. I’ve mentioned losing both our elderly llamas at the same time just two years ago, but in the past, I have also lost cats on both Christmas day and Boxing day. Christmas seems to have it in for me.

We had a choice, or at least, that is how I saw things. We could grieve for Gremlin and never have another curly-coated hooligan, or we could still grieve for him and find another kitten. I decided to do the latter, only after a very tentative search over the holiday period, I discovered that they are even harder to find than ever. There were no breeders in London, the area I chose for Gismo, my very first Devon boy. We got lucky with Gremlin because his breeder was even closer to home, but I knew that she had given up a few years earlier. There were four left in the south-east – two had long waiting lists and weren’t going to breed until well into the spring and the other two didn’t bother to reply. I had thought it would be better to give it a few months before looking seriously, but clearly, I would have to start straight away.

Eventually I found a lovely lady with two kittens for sale in Norfolk. I had inquired about her six-month chocolate girl advertised on her web site, but apparently, a lady had already put down a deposit for Sonea and was going to collect her the following day. The breeder did mention that sometimes people change their minds, so I said we would wait until after the weekend and the situation was clear. She contacted me a couple of days later to say the woman had indeed changed her mind and had fallen for one of the younger kittens instead. That left Sonea still looking for a home.

I spoke to my husband, paid in full and arranged to collect her a few days later. It was a 300-mile round trip and took all day. I was actually surprised at how quickly I got to Norfolk, but it had rained a lot recently and I didn’t realise my route ran through a wetlands centre and the road was closed due to severe flooding. It was actually an amazing sight, but left me with a very long detour. Of course, once I arrived, we got talking about cats and before we realised, two hours had passed. I popped Sonea in the cat basket and set off for home. Unfortunately, the Sat Nav wouldn’t let me avoid the wetlands centre and for the second time, I had to find a detour around the floods. It was a full hour before I reached the main road.

Sonea has been with us for three weeks now and has settled in perfectly. She adores all the other cats, who love her in return. They spend hours playing and washing one another. Our biggest problem is that she is besotted with the cats’ play den and I have to keep turning the toys on to keep her amused. Last weekend we ran out of batteries and until the shopping is delivered on Sunday, one toy remains out of action. She will never replace either Gismo or Gremlin, but we love her very much.