Re: Phil's Phings
The Cat in the Coalhouse - 5th and Final Part
Of course, Mum’s dire warnings about the amount of hard work involved in kitten rearing were absolutely correct. For the next few weeks it was by no means unusual to find kittens climbing up the curtains or chasing furiously up and down the furniture, aided by their razor sharp crampon-like claws. MC seemed to be completely at ease with divesting her responsibilities onto Mum and took to curling up on any available lap at every opportunity, as did the kittens, in an orderly row, once they had exhausted themselves in one of their “mad half-hours” as Mum called them.
The kittens were christened as Fluff - long haired, all white kitten with a splash of black on both ears and a penchant for laps and creature comforts, Scamp - short haired, all white with a splash of black on his right ear, a rugged individualist and Fred - long haired, white and tricolour and a born comedian. Fred had to be rechristened Freda when it became clear that she was a little girl cat, which shows how far she would go to get a laugh.
It was a struggle financially and logistically to manage our new-found brood but we managed. Well, Mum did, to be fair, although how she coped with keeping our house clean and tidy when she had kittens traipsing soil through the kitchen and wreaking havoc on the furniture, I’ll never know. What with the cat, kittens, our Cocker Spaniel, Jane a budgie (Dinkie, they were all called that, don’t ask me why!) and some goldfish, we had a pretty full house.
The kittens grew rapidly and it was obvious that our small house would never be able to house all of these cats for ever. Once again we were very fortunate. Our friendly local vet heard of our plight and recommended a number of people to come and see us. One by one, our kittens found very good homes indeed and we heard how they were doing in the cards and letters that followed.
Mum decided that MC really needed a quiet house in which to bask in front of the fire and tried to re-home her with a little old lady who had lost her cat and lived just a few streets away, but this was doomed to failure as MC had clearly decided which home she fancied and she reappeared at our door a couple of days after her ‘re-homing’. She took up residence, as if this had all been an unfortunate aberration, and remained with us for the rest of her life.
Strangely enough, the coalhouse didn’t seem to appeal anymore!
You can find the whole story, complete with pictures, plus much more, in 'Crutches for Ducks' at http://getbook.at/crutchesforducks