A year of Flora

Twelve months ago today I went to Braemar Breeding Cattery to collect my very special Christmas present from the Magnet . A couple of weeks before, I had met this small, fluffy, tortoiseshell creature who had taken one look at me and decided I was hers and now she was coming home to live with us.

27th December 2007 was the day that Flora the Floozie came into our lives. (Her parents were Annie and the gorgeous - enormous - Barney if you're interested). She had some big gaps to fill - just three months before I had lost beautiful Bob Redford, the ginger and white alpha male, and I didn't know that soft and sweet black and white Spiffy was in his last month too. But Madame Flora aka Princess Flora Flooziebelle was made to help with that.

It's been a hectic and wonderful year of watching her grow, letting her learn our ways and adjust to living with the more sedate gentlemen Sid and Dylan - and for us to adjust to being pounced on in the early hours of the morning, having our ears chewed because we're not awake and we should be awake because Flora wanted breakfast/to play/ to go outside/just to join us.

From the start she has loved watching the horseracing - she is convinced that is she just pounces quickly enough she will be able to catch one of them and pull if off the screen. She hasn;t quite managed it yet but one day . . .

She has fitted in to the household as if it was made for her - and taken over to make sure that things are run her way because she knows she's beautiful - everyone says so!
She has converted Sid - who wasn't too sure to start with )and still isn't too keen on being pounced on when he come s in the door or tries to sleep in the biggest bed.

She has explored the land Beyond thw Door and discovered that the garden is a wonderful place filled with intriguing creatures like the Heck family of hedghogs.


She didn't enjoy the rainy summer we had and got very very wet
when it poured down - as it often did.

The snow was another fascination - she was not too sure about that - it was fun to play in but very cold on the paws.



She's grown - LOTS - as you should be able to tell from these picture. She's a big girl now, with a long body, elegant very pale grey ruff of fur about her face and a wonderful long, plumed tail that she carries fantastically high when she's happy - which is most of the time. She understand quite a vocabulary - Teatime being the obvious word but she also knows 'stick' (her favourite treats - trout and salmon sticks - and 'go and wake Daddy' which gives her permission to run upstairs, jump on the Babe Magent and chew his ears. She loves baskets/bags/carriers/boxes - anything she can climb into and play inside.

And she's enjoyed her first Christmas - the games that provided include: chewing her way through the Christmas tree branches, stealing baubles from the tree and batting them about the room, pouncing on ribbons, tinsel and wrapping paper, chasing the dice while we were playing board games, leaping over a coffee table and sending several glasses of lemonade and cola flying with one kick of her back legs/ stealing the scarf and gloved set I was given and hiding them in her bed for later.

She's provided laughter and delight. She's always there to welcome me with her special 'chirrup' and that tail waviung high just as soon as I come in through the door. And she has helped to ease the sadness of those empty spaces. She doesn't replace Bob and Spiff because they were irreplacable - as Flora is now because she is very special and very much herself.

It's been a great year Flora- I'm really looking forward to the next 12 months.