Homes for a famous Fredcat through the years
Recently I have been trying to count up the homes I have lived in. There are quite a number of them. If I had know that my friend Cathie was possessed of such a wanderlust I might have considered hitching myself to another little star, but she was kind enough to rescue me when I was in dire need, and it did work out well in the end - which was good.
The original homeless cat
I am a little vague about my first home. Somewhere nice, I expect, in Lancashire, England. Times were clearly tough for us so, as a well adjusted kitten, I was clearly selected to be the first of my litter to make my way into the world. It was not long, however, before I needed to find some comfort - winter was approaching and sleeping rough was not my idea of fun.
I managed to find a nice place where all sorts of animals were being housed. It was called the Freshfields Animal Rescue Centre, in Ince Blundell, in Lancashire. Life was reasonably comfortable there but there were limitations to my wanderings. Frankly - I was shut up in a pen and my skills had not yet developed enough for me to find the way out. So I waited.
Then along came Cathie, and her son David. They were rather smitten at the time with another cat at the Centre, but were advised that it was a poorly sick creature and the nice people who ran the Centre decided not to release said creature into Cathie's tender care. Well, as they say, one cat's misfortune is another's cat lucky day.
I travelled to a temporary home in Crosby where I met with Forby - never was there a more fortuitous meeting! He was my mentor. He followed me everywhere for two days just to make sure that I was an OK cat, ready for teaching, but once he was satisfied that I had the potential to be famous it was fine.
Later we moved to Blundellsands - which was even nicer. For a start, Cathie managed to persuade Mr. B. to install a cat flap in the outer kitchen door so that Forby and I could exit or enter at will. Then she persuaded Mr. B to install a second cat flap from the outer kitchen area into the inner kitchen area, because the outer area was unheated. This enabled us the luxury of a warm kitchen when the weather was unpleasant.
Then Forby had a quick word with Cathie to say that it was all very well to have access to the kitchen but, as you know, cats need a lot of sleep time and human beds are the ideal place for that. It therefore didn't take too long before a third cat flap was installed permitting access from the kitchen into the hall, and hence to the comfortable beds upstairs. It was such a sensible arrangement that we brought all sorts of thank you gifts to Cathie - stray birds (which seemed to have lost the will to fly), mice and lizards (which didn't seem to move much at all when we offered to play with them) and several rabbits. All of these lovely gifts were smuggled though all three cat flaps, and all were subsequently released by Mr. B. except the rabbit (he died).
Then we moved again - to a very large house in Aughton. This was a very nice house with plenty of room to roam around in. We had only one cat flap to negotiate in this house, installed in a window this time, with a drop onto the ground outside of several feet. This cat flap gave Forby and I access to the utility room where we could wipe our feet on the washing machine when we came in from the muddy outside. This was very convenient and it was most considerate of Cathie to arrange it. We even had a wooden ledge installed on the outside wall to enable us the luxury of a half-way staging post so that we could make the leap upwards in two jumps. Such kindness.
Later on, it was back into the dreaded cat carriers again, to to travel down to a new house in Surrey where there was already a very nice cat flap, installed directly into the utility room, off a warm and cosy kitchen. There were huge fences to climb and another lovely garden where we could practice our climbing and basking skills. The sun was wonderful in the summer but - living higher up, on a hill - the winter could be surprisingly cold and this gave we cats good experience in the art of survival in winter snows (when we chose to gain such exoerience, of course!).
Then we were on the move once more, this time to a house in Middlesex. It was unfortunate that there was no kitchen door in this house so it was arranged that a tunnel be constructed straight through an 18" thick wall that led directly into the kitchen, with a cat flap at the external end of the tunnel. That made life interesting! By this time Forby was no longer with us and Charlie had arrived to take his place.
Only a short time later we moved again to Sussex - where an excellent garden was available, which regrettably, the next door cat Thomas thought was his domain. We stayed for about a year there, and I had some fascinating adventures at that time.
But all good things pass and I moved once more a little further afield. It was sad but my new companion Charlie had only a short time to live when he joined us in Surrey and therefore could not make the leap to the our new home. I had always wanted to travel more extensively so this time we moved to North Carolina in the USA. Our first home there was a first floor flat - second floor if you live in the USA - with no access at all to the outside world unless the door was opened by helpful humans. Not a good environment and I was very peeved at my human friends for placing me in this situation.
But this annoyance soon ended when we left the apartment and moved into our proper American home - although, at the time, there were no cat flaps to enable to go out and about as I pleased .... Cathie, however, soon sorted out the access problem and I now have excellent neat catflaps, so designed that I can clean myself off when entering through the first into the garage, before using the one which leads from the garage into the kitchen - and thence to food and a plentiful supply of decent, warm, comfortable beds. (I have to say though, that trekking sticky clay and thick mud through the kitchen is certainly possible if the weather outside has been particularly unpleasant - which makes life interesting for the humans who have to keep the kitchen respectable.)
And there you have it. I have lived in lots of homes and have had plenty of adventures therein. I will now have to work out which ones to recount in my diary. See you there!