What is it with cats ? My family walk through my  door and it’s not ”hello mum, hello dad” instead they walk in with an armful of cat talking to it as if they haven’t seen it for a year.

My daughter with Lilly our best friend and the most beautiful cat ever.

You don’t really own a cat; they come and go whenever they want. If they want attention they will let you know big time .They will greet you from work and even cross the road to say they are pleased to see you .Meeeeeeooowww,Meeeeowwww, they cry. They can be the most affectionate creature.

Not all cats are like that; some cats think you are there for them only. Meow, food. Meow,let me out. Meow,attention. So demanding and yet if you want a stroke, you get one , but on their terms- only if they want one. This is the short story of two much loved cats, Lilly and Toulouse.

Lilly and Toulouse

Lilly was  Toulouse’s mother and did’nt really bond with him as a kitten as she was too young to have him (our fault as we should have had her spade earlier). Intellectually Toulose is stupid. For a while he was named Phoebe after the Friends character who wrote a song called “smelly cat”(and indeed Toulouse  can be a very smelly cat). As I said my wife  thought Pheobe was female and we took her to be spade, determined not to make the same mistake again.

The vet said that he couldn’t spade Phoebe. ”Why?” asked my wife.The vet lifted the cat’s tail . ”Oh no”, exclaimed my wife, Does she have worms?” . ”No”, said the laughing vet ”it’s because he has testicles! He suggested that, sticking with the Friends theme’ she might want to call him Chandler. To this day we don’t know how he became Toulouse but Toulouse it was . This story makes us laugh everytime we recall it. Not my wife’s most intellectual moment, she says.

Bright eyed and alert was Lilly and then there’s Toulouse.

Sadly we no longer have Lills who passed away with cancer.This was a terrible day in our lives but her memory will stay with us forever. Lills was with us for 17 years and was along with Toulouse a huge part of our family.

Toulouse is as mad as a hatter.

Lilly was a mouse catcher ,Toulouse a pigeon catcher so as a wildlife lover I have had to adapt my garden to try to prevent our cats doing what comes naturally. Now, they all live together in harmony.I have lots of birds and wildlife but I have had to rescue the odd mouse,as cats do like to play.

The mouse was rescued .

Cats are easy to photograph and in my opinion are very photogenic.Toulouse gets himself into some strange positions and will park himself anywhere that’s warm and comfortable.My next door neighbour complained that Toulouse was sleeping on his warm car and being a good neighbour I said I would tell my cat not to sleep there.

Toulouse in amoungst the bluebells

Toulouse has been king of the castle for many years around his patch but is getting old; the fight in him has gone. Nowadays an intruder is met with a look of contempt rather than a hunched back and a hiss. Life goes on for our much loved arthritic cat

Toulouse takes no notice of the intruder and the feeders are out of range.

Cats or Dogs ? Cats for me everytime.In loving memory of Lills.