This one's tough to write - but so many of you have shared in the cat charisma of my lovely Cat of Superior Breeding - many of you have received prizes as a result of his totally objective and enthusiastic choosing of winners names for my contests so I have to share. Yesterday I lost my beautiful cat Sid.
Fourteen years ago, we opened our back door and our then black and white cat Spiffy walked in, followed by a large,spectacularly beautifully marked black tabby with great big paws and a thick soft furry tail. He lived here, his attitude said - he
belonged.
And yes he did. He
belonged.
We tried to find previous owners - but only at the beginning. When we realised that he had air gun pellets in his belly where he had been used for target practice, and that some of his whiskers had been pulled out, we gave up - no one who did that deserved him. And we were amazed by how trusting and affectionate he was considering what he'd been through. He slept for the first 3 months with his eyes open, twitching in his sleep - and if he went outside and the door shut then the whole neighbourhood new it. He would stand at the back door - his door - and YELL! And he would continue to yell until someone turned up to let him in.
I named him Sid - after Rambling Sid Rumpo in the Round the Horne radio programmed. That dates me but the name fitted - except it didn't stay at just Sid. Bit were added here there and everywhere until he became Sir Sidney St John Eamonn Willoughby Portly-Lummox. Anne McAllister, one of his greatest fans - and a deep friend, their meeting was a meeting of minds - added 'Bart' - Baronet - Laird of Hellion's Bumpstead and Earl of Blubberhouses (we share a love of some of the more ridiculous names of UK villages.
Anne also shared Sid for all the years of our friendship (mine, hers and Sid's) She became his Dear Lady Across The Pond, her Gunnar the Great the d-o-g that Sid could tolerate at this distance! And she gave Sid his starring roles in her books The Great Montana Cowboy Auction and his final appearence in One Night Love-Child. So Sir Sidney became, on the pages at least, a American cat too.
She bought him a ten gallon hat - several ten gallon hats in different colours, perfectly happy to go into a shop and ask for a 'ten gallown hat for a cat'. And she sent him a special food bowl - one that she knew would suit him perfectly. 'Bad to The Bone' it said. And no one -
no one else was ever allowed to eat from him. No one else ever will.
He was a cat of substance - Anne had him right when she described him as A Cat of Superior Breeding. He may have come in off the streets but he made himself into a gracious host in no time, hurrying to meet visitors, to wind himself round their legs and give them his special head butts of welcome. If you picked him up, he woold immediately put his arms round your back and HUG. He got on well with everyone - all the other cats even Flora the Floozie and Charlie Rumpusscat were tolerated, taught respect with a well aimed paw. The one cat who was always his arch rival was Dylan who was an ex-street-tom like himself and they held themselves apart. each guarding his own territory. When Dylan went missing in March we already knew that Sid had a sore mouth that wasn't healing - sadly, an investigation a month or so later proved that this was mouth cancer and totally inoperable. We could manage on painkillers and love until it was too much. For months that worked - his enthusiasm for food - something that never dimmed - continued, in fact it increased as he became slightly senile and forgot that he'd just been fed - or claimed he had.
Yesterday we knew it was too much. That cancer was making his life unliveable. He couldn't eat, had lost too much weight he was bleeding. The growth had spead into his head, his eye. It was time to let him leave peacefully. My thanks go to the vets who help us help these beautiful creatures and make sure they slip away so gently, so softly that you can have no doubt you've made the right decision - for them.
I don't know how old Sid was when he first chose to walk into my life and my heart - 18 months? 2 years? I just know I have an empty 14 year old space in my life. I don't have any regrets though - for Sid.
Flora has been suprisingly cuddly - she's not a deeply affectionate cat - Charlie is clearly worried by the space in his life too. Over the past months he has spent long hours lying in the hallway, just a few feet away from Sid, just chilling. It seems as if he was absorbing the wisdom of the Great Cat - and communicating without words or fuss.
Charlie will take over the responsibility of choosing my winners in the future - he's been taught by the Master. He's not yet A Cat Of Superior Breeding - he has a lot of growing up to do to fill such big paws. But I know he'll remember his friend and miss him as we all do.
How can you not miss 14 years of love and purrs and head-butts, a large, furry spread of cat over half my desk when I was working - obviously meant to inspire me (waht alpha male could compete with that sight.) . - and a heavy, snoozing weight on your back when you wake in the night.
There's a lot to miss - he was a great cat. A Cat of Superior Breeding.
I loved the challenge of writing a romance inspired by Wuthering Heights - but I did miss all that heavy duty research of the UK TV mini series with the inspiration of one Richard Armitage.
