It’s the day after my birthday, and so I’ve called this journey to my next birthday the year of the cat. I am determined that the circumstances will be right during this year to purchase or in another way acquire the companionship of a cat (Ok, that doesn’t mean steal one. Honest).
Years ago my big white hairy cat who thought he was a dog or a human made me a mad wizard. Before he found me, I had thought cats were cats and had been surrounded by them most of my life. At the time he decided to walk into my life I already had two ordinary cats. They were your standard female cats, that just did cat things.
One day, I came home to find them looking all ruffled and scared and wound up. Fearing that it was a huge monster had entered through the cat-flap and was rummaging around the living room that my two cats were avoiding, I slowly entered to discover this huge white hairy cat stretched out on the sofa cleaning himself. I think I shouted something, which he ignored. I walked up to him and he acknowledged me with a glance and then carried on cleaning. I tipped up the sofa and stamped on the floor, so he gave me a “Wanker” look and strolled back out of the cat-flap. The other ordinary cats looked on as if they had victoriously chased the intruder from their territory.
Two minutes later he was back in, strolling past the hissing and straight up onto my lap. My lap! Well, the day passed with a collection of events with a water-pistol and the blocking of the cat-flap, but he remained at every opportunity. He would climb onto me and despite being as heavy as an Alsatian would attach himself to my shoulder.
Eventually via a ‘cat missing’ card in a local newsagent I found out that he had arrived from a woman who lived about 4 streets away. I carried him on my shoulder back to her house, and she wept with thanks as I explained the circumstances of his arrival and the unhappiness of my two other cats. Proudly I walked back home, feeling a sense of achievement and like I had done a stirling public service. I put the key in the door, wandered in and casually made my way to the living room.
Bugger me, the big white hairy cat had beaten me to it. There he was stretched out on the sofa. I scooped him up and marched around to the lady and explained what had happened. She suggested she would keep him overnight to re-acclimatise him to his home, and so I returned to mine.
Next morning, cadunk went the cat-flap and in he walked, and straight through to the living room. Again, I was on the doorstep of the distressed lady’s house with the big white hairy cat on my shoulder. After a tear filled and very awkward conversation she said I’d best look after him as he obviously hated her, and suggested it could be something to do with her just having had a baby.
She told me he was a thoroughbred something, one of a number of brothers she had had for about a year, and she would sort out all his certificates and his name was Woostar. Well, his name was longer than that, but Woostar was the only bit I remembered. I never went back for the paperwork, it seemed a bit mean.
From that moment Woostar became my best mate, and lived with me in a number of places. He would walk up the road to the shops with me, wait outside like a dog, and in fact, do all the normal dog things. He would snore louder than some humans, and was completely outcast by the feline nation. They would all hiss and spit as he passed, and he would just look at them and say, “Cats, eh?” totally ignoring whatever the protocol of pecking order they were trying to indicate he was breaking.
His hair was so long that he needed constant trimming to avoid ‘cling-ons’ in the botty area.
I would tell people about Woostar and they’d think I was like one of those mad old women who thinks she can talk to cats and surrounds herself with 80 of them. Then they’d meet him, and start telling others about him, again being treated as if they had ‘issues’.
His best trick was being able to actually open the fridge, hook stuff out, and close the door behind him. Things would go missing, with tell-tale wrappings left on the floor to give him away. Only a child-lock managed to keep him out.
Many years later after many years of adventures, he decided to move in with the neighbours. It was sudden and just one day, like it had been for the poor lady before me. I would see him and say hello, and he was pleased to see me, but he made no bones about the fact that he lived next door now.
Strangely, a year or so after he’d moved in with them, he suddenly started appearing back in my home. I was puzzled. He’d sussed that the neighbours were moving, and were getting ready to move a long way away, so he decided this wasn’t for him, and to return to me. However, they managed to collect him and put him in a cage to take him off to pastures new. I bet he was pissed off about that. I can see him now, “You bastards”. Well, he settled back in with them in their new home, got very fat and lived his life until he died naturally.
People who know me of old will tell stories of Woostar, he was a unique personality you had to see to believe. From time to time I miss him, even all these decades later.
England's England 