Goodbye little Lucky

WH's cat, which the household shared with a neighbour, died today. No-one knows exactly how old she was, but she had been there for over eighteen years. Originally she turned up as one of several strays, all black with white markings and lived in the shed outside. One day, apparently, she just walked indoors, jumped on WH's lap and there she stayed. After the girls grew, up she spent more time with the neighbours, sleeping in their airing cupboard and terrorising the other resident stray.

Really however, she was my youngest step-daughter's cat. She had an uncanny knack of knowing which days she was coming to stay at her Dad's and waited on the garden wall at 3.30pm to greet her from school. She slept with her too, until, after hours of purring and pawing, she would be unceremoniously shoved onto the floor. Failing all else, she would sleep with WH and then demand to be let out at 4am! She learned how to climb in top windows, how to knock when she wanted to come in and how to climb onto the shed roof and turn sommersaults as she reached for the nesting Martins above. She never got one though. She did once catch a mouse. Indignant little step-daughter rescued it until the mouse bit her sharply on the finger and would not let go. The mouse was returned to Lucky sharpish and left to it's fate.

Lucky had a lovely life, a variety of laps to choose from, indeed a choice of homes and beds to sleep in. She had the greenhouse when it was warm and the airing cupbaord when it was cold. She was fed ham and garlic sausage by her doting owners and spent hours chasing a little girl up and down the garden paths, being dressed up and pushed round in a dolls pram and even had a poem recited about her at a Brownie Revel. She was soft and gentle and extremely faithful. She will leave a big hole and an awful lot of memories for a lot of people.