Sunday greetings fabulous furriends
Today rather than us being in all the selfies, we are having a little tribute to our fallen comrades, who are
GONE, BUT NEFFUR FURGOTTEN
Mew won't know these two furry special kitties, as we didn't have a blog back then but as it's their Rainbow Bridge Anniversaries we feel it's time mew met them as without Catkin there would neffur have a been a Heathen Hoard today, or any books, or a crazy cat lady that we affectionately call The P.A.!
C.J. Catkin was the P.A.'s furst effur kitty. He adopted her in September 1996 as a 4 month old kitten. He belonged to the peeps who lived in a flat a couple of houses down from the P.A. but he kept coming to her top floor flat and making himself at home. Then one day, the P.A. saw some peeps when she was descending the fire escape from her flat and they saw the kitten with her. They asked her if she wanted the kitten as the owners didn't want him anymore, so she said yes and when she came back an hour later there was a litter tray, a bag of cat litter and some food left by her door. Talk about couldn't wait to get rid of him!!!
Anyhoo, Catkin moved in and then a few months later he didn't come home one night, the P.A. scoured the streets and rang all the local rescues furst thing in the morning. She got a call later in the day to say a cat matching his description had been brought in to the Radford Road Clinic in Nottingham, so she rushed down there and found out he'd got hit by a car the night before and had a badly broken back leg. So she whisked him to the vets and he ended up having his leg pinned and a metal splint screwed to the outside of his leg. It was all rather traumatic as he had to go to a specialist surgeon miles away to get the break fixed.
Not long aftur that the P.A. moved house and Catkin obviously went with her, his leg healed and he eventually recovered. Then in September 1999 the P.A. noticed he wasn't well and he ended up back at the vets with suspected malicious rat poisoning* and his blood was clotting. The vets managed to save him and the P.A. had to give him soluble aspirin effury other day via a syringe in his mouth to keep his blood from clotting. His previously broken leg which had been great up until this point lost some movement and his back foot would curl under as the blood wasn't reaching his extremities propurrly. So she massaged his toes and paw effury day and slowly it got better.
Then on the 27th of January 2000 she came home from wurk and he'd had a seizure and was laid almost rigid at the top of the stairs. She rushed him to the vets driving like a complete maniac in her panic as her best furriend lay dying on the seat next to her in the arms of her Uncle John.
The vet put him in an oxygen tent and tried to thin his blood, but sadly a large clot had reached his brain and he died at 3am.
Neffur in all her life has the P.A. felt so hopeless, the devastation of losing Catkin was horrendous. Picking him up the next day and burying him in the garden with the help of Uncle John was almost too much to bear and she actually didn't get out of bed fur the next 4 days as she grieved the loss of her furry bestest furriend effur in the known cosmos.
* A few months later there was an article in the local paper saying that there had been numerous cat killings in the area by some sicko, and that many cats had lost their lives over the previous several months.
* A few months later there was an article in the local paper saying that there had been numerous cat killings in the area by some sicko, and that many cats had lost their lives over the previous several months.
But only a few weeks before he died, Catkin actually saved her from something that could have been... well let me tell mew the story.
The P.A. moved house once more in late November 1999 with Catkin, and they moved into her uncles Barn Conversion in Sleepy Hollow. The barn was much larger than their previous residences and she didn't have much furniture or stuff, there wasn't even a fence or any gates so the property was wide open. She had one telephone down in the lounge under her bedroom and a mobile phone that worked occasionally due to cell coverage being rather sporadic back in the dark ages. [Its not that great today either!]
So early in January 2000 on a cold frosty night, The P.A. locked up the house and went to bed. At around 2am Catkin jumped on the bed and kept wiping his wet nose along her cheek, mewing softly and pawing at her face until she woke up. He was relentless in his desire to wake her. As she stirred from her coma-like-sleep and asked Catkin what was wrong seeing that he was highly agitated, that's when she heard a faint chink, chink, chink sound, metal on metal coming from the lounge beneath her bedroom. She lay in the darkness hardly daring to breath as the noise increased and at furst she actually wundered if she was imagining it.
Aftur a few minutes she realized that someone was trying to break in through the metal patio doors and she couldn't be sure if they'd breached the house already. She didn't dare get out of bed as all the floor-boards upstairs creak and groan as mew walk on them and she knew the telephone was in the lounge and she had no way to get get to it without making a noise and her baseball bat was in the laundry, so there was no way to get to anything. She prayed her cell phone had a signal and luckily it did, so she rang her dad knowing he was a light sleeper. He answered the phone almost immediately but the cell signal dropped out just as the P.A. was explaining her dire situation. Her dad not remembering her cell number rang back on the landline, which then rang the phone in the lounge. Not daring to go downstairs the P.A. waited for it to ring off and just as it did the security lights pinged on outside illuminating the courtyard and she heard footsteps running away on the gravel.
Taking a deep breath and mustering up a lot of courage she crept downstairs in the pitch black with Catkin at her side. He was still on guard as they went to the laundry furst to grab her bat and then they made their way to the lounge, where she found to her utter horror that someone had been trying to prise the patio doors open with a screwdriver as all the lock was bent and twisted.
Catkin saved her from something that night, lord knows who tried to break in or what they even wanted, but if he hadn't woken her and been so purrsistant in his quest to rouse her, who knows what vileness may have happened that night.
Catkin was a true HERO and the P.A. still thinks of him effuryday. He was only 3 and half when he sadly departed fur the Rainbow Bridge, but in his short time here he had enough love fur a 100 lifetimes.
OTRB 28th January 2000 aged 3 1/2
* * *
Miss Mildred arrived on the 4th of February 2000, exactly a week aftur Catkins departure. The P.A.'s Uncle Michael took her to the Burton Joyce Cat Rescue as he knew how upset she was at the loss of Catkin and thought that getting another cat would help her immensely. They arrived at the rescue and Brenda who runs it showed the P.A. the only two residents she had: Miss Mildred who was called Tammy and a big black cat called Max.
The P.A. went with no expectations and the notion that she didn't even want another cat. But when she saw Max, she knew she couldn't walk away and then when she heard Tammy's story she knew she couldn't leave her behind either. And that's how Humphrey and Miss Mildred came to Sleepy Hollow.
Miss Mildred's story began at an old peoples home in Mansfield, Notts. She was part of a 100+ feral colony and slowly all of the cats were trapped and neutered then rehomed. Mildred escaped the trap fur quite some time and lived in a broken greenhouse while the kindly residents still put food out fur her. When she was eventually caught, Brenda had her neutered and she was in the next cage to Humphrey. She was tiny fur her age, no bigger than a 6 month old cat when she was 2 years old.
When the P.A. brought the pair of them home and released them from the carriers. Humphrey settled in like it had always been his home, yet Mildred ran upstairs into the spare bedroom and hid up inside the antique bed. She spent 3 months in that room, hiding up on the wooden lats between the bed springs under the bed, so the P.A. set up a litter box and feeding station so she didn't have to go far. The P.A. also spent that 3 months half lying under the bed trying to coax her out for up to 3 hours a day and eventually one day Mildred just appeared in the kitchen and she neffur looked back.
Being from a feral colony she was terrified of peeps but slowly as time went on she became the fussiest fuss monster effur, like seriously mew would neffur have believed the turnaround in her trust and demeanor. She would chase mew fur pats and dribble, mew would have neffur thought that a cat so small could compete with the dribble from a St Bernard, but she did and won paws down.
She loved to play fur hours on end, and to say where she started out in life and where she ended up, it was like North and South Poles, the difference was incredible.
Sadly in late 2008 she started to cough up blood and aftur a trip to the vets, it was discovered she had a tumour between her lungs and nothing could be done to save her.
Miss Mildred departed offur the Rainbow Bridge on the 29th January 2009 and to this day no-one has taken her crown fur the fussiest, friendliest dribble monster in the known cosmos, and also she was the reason fur so many other unwanted kitties being adopted by the P.A.'s friends, because once they'd met her they wanted a cat of their own.
Miss Mildred Marbles was truly amazing and is sadly missed effuryday too, and fur such a small cat she had the biggest heart mew could effur imagine.
OTRB 29th January 2009 aged 11
* * *
That concludes our Remembrance Tribute to our fallen hero's, sorry if we rambled, though we could have rambled much more! That's why today post is called:
Gone But Neffur Furgotten
Wishing mew all a supurr cuddly day, as mew must make time to cuddle those mew love dearly
Sweetest Sunday Purrs
Sweetest Sunday Purrs
Basil & Co xox
Don't furget to join in the pawesome Sunday Selfies Blog Hop with
Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo at their fabulous blog:
