The Hairy Tails of a Cat Sitter

by C H Hemington

Introduction

  The fact that my parents called me Katherine was a mistake of epic proportions. What on earth possessed them to spell it with a K? Of course I shortened it to Kat, but it seemed such a huge opportunity missed.

  I was notified that I was to be a cat owner at the age of four. I was hiding in the toilet upstairs at my parent’s house in Kent, trying to avoid a pair of distant relatives who’d come to visit. It turns out they were emigrating to New Zealand and were bestowing upon us their young cat, unimaginatively called Pussy; and whilst I was hiding in the toilet, Pussy was hiding under my parent’s bed, obviously anxious and certainly not ready to hobnob with his new human family. As a shy little girl I knew exactly how he felt, and when I peeped under the bed’s frilly valence and got my first sight of this frightened fluff-ball I knew that was my moment, the one that had me hooked on cats. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wear cat-printed tights, cat earrings, brooches or other cat-related accessories, and neither do I carry hessian bags embellished with the faces of my own two cats, but I will admit to talking to them in a silly high-pitched voice and to having a tattoo of the Cheshire cat, much to my Dad’s disgust.

  “Tell me it’s not real!!” he implored; and despite the fact that twenty years have now elapsed, he still mutters “Only navvies have tattoos” every time he sees it.

  Pussy’s name was another bone of contention. My father felt it was too feminine and duly called him Jed. Yes he had a point, but it was only when I came to understand the alternative meaning of the term that understood his original motivations for changing it, after all ours was a very conservative neighbourhood.

  I had my Pussy (as I still called him) for sixteen years, all through my formative years and stroppy teens he was with me, a serene, enigmatic and loyal companion. He died whilst I was studying abroad and in a way I was thankful for the timing, I couldn’t have bared to see him leave me. However, coming back to a feline-free house was more than I could cope with, so thereafter followed a succession of moggies, entering and exiting my life, leaving their own individual paw-print impressions on my heart.

  It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I started my cat sitting business. Although if I’d known then that it would mean me spending most of my time up to my elbows in cat doo-doo, not to mention the early mornings, late nights, complicated alarms, dodgy neighbours, dubious interiors and emergency veterinary visits, would I have made the same decision? You bet I would.