I've known quite a few people in the RN who have been known as "Black-catters". One of them in particular was always known as "10 Sheds", because if you had a huge garden with 9 sheds in it, he'd have had a bigger one with 10! A few of us went on a trip to Tenerife, and it always made me laugh afterwards, when we talked about how all of us, apart from Andy, had been to Tenerife - - He'd been to Eleven-erife!
Cats ? We've got four of the bleedin' things. One is blacker than the ace of spades - she even has black whiskers. She's 17 years old, has renal problems but is still quite a character. The other is huge, she's a Maine Coon. Then, after moving to the Middle East, an all white cat (with blue eyes ) adopted us, she sort of moved in to our garden and has never left. We traced the owner, who said she kept leaving home and she didn't want her back. She's been with us for well over a year. Then, on Christmas day, I came home from work to find my wife had found another cat, a blacker than space persian. Oh, we also have a fledgeling that we are trying to raise and keeping the cats away from it is a nightmare. Black cats, yeah, I know about black cats.
'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the ways its animals are treated ~ Mahatma Gandhi'
We only have one cat. But our garden seems to be a sort of cat Alton Towers. There's about a dozen that visit regularly. It's not as if it's the only garden around here (even if it's one of the biggest). I'm not sure what the attraction of our garden is, but if I knew, I'd market it. At any given time, if you look out of the window, you see a cat. Most of the time, it's not ours. We are getting a hedgehog next week. Someone took in a baby and is looking for a suitable garden to release it into. We have been nominated. So that will be another source of worry. Fortunately, cats don't hassle hedgehogs, but there are plenty of martens here which might. Hey-ho.
