I'm writing this with a bundle of ginger purring away next to me on the sofa. Occasionally, he looks up at me and gently points out that I seem to have stopped stroking him... He's also very interested in the sound that the keys make on the laptop and will bat at the top of the machine.
After ten years of living together, John and I have finally got a cat; we knew we had to wait until after we got a house of our own, and then had various holidays, both back to the UK and with family and friends coming here, and with one thing and another, 2014 became the Year of the Cat.
We picked him up from our local animal rescue shelter, after making quite a few trips to see the cats in their care. We'd already decided that we didn't want to have a kitten (it's less fair when we are out at work all day, and we didn't really want to go through all of the fuss of toilet training!), but didn't really have anything in mind by way of colour, breed or sex; all we knew was that we wanted to get a rescue cat, rather than buying one from a store.
Basil caught our attention from the first visit; he was in an isolation unit(multiple cages in a room, as opposed to cats being able to mingle together), because he hadn't yet had his vaccinations (there had been a delay because he had developed crystals in his bladder), and was very noisy about the fact that he was missing the company of people. There were a number of cats who caught our eye, but Basil won out (even after he caused us a lot of hassle by getting out of his cage, and straight under the other cages in the isolation area - we eventually got him out by making a fuss of another cat! He certainly likes to be the centre of attention...), and we took him home 10 days ago
It took him a few days to settle and get used to our routine (and he's still not overly happy about being shut out of the bedroom at night, and the fact that he's currently not allowed outside until he has the rest of his vaccinations), but he is an incredibly friendly and sociable cat. He's taken friends coming round, both for the evening and for a weekend visit, in his stride.
I'm just having to remember what it's like living with cat hair everywhere (i.e. don't kneel down to make a fuss of the cat when you are wearing your smart, black, work trousers...)!
