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2024 Week50: Chosen family #52Ancestorsin52weeks

 Family consists of more than just people. Most people would agree that pets are 'family' too. Over the decades of having many wonderful cats as pets, I chose all but two of them. Those two chose us.

First of all along came a cat, whom we later found it to be called Mittens. He started off as a 'visiting' cat in late 2017. He was not only visiting the garden, but also coming through the cat flap and was not put off by the fact we had three other cats (Toto, Taz and Mia) at this time. As with any 'visitor' we tried not to encourage him, but eventually, when it seemed he was spending most of his time here,  I took him down to our vets to get scanned. It turned out he was registered at our vets so they were able to contact his owner, who came there later to pick him up. We actually met at that time as I was down collecting our cat basket. It turned out that Mittens (named after his big white polydactyl paws) had to cross a main road and come quite a distance to visit us. However, that did not put him off - he continued to spend a lot of his time at our house. Admittedly there was lot going on in his own household - his owners were splitting up, the father of one of the owners who also looked after him took ill and died - I guess Mittens just preferred the stability of our home. 

Our earliest photo of Mittens, December 2017.

It didn't come as a surprise when eventually his owner asked if we would keep him. As previously mentioned, we already had three cats (and two rabbits). I promised her we would never turn him away. He is still with us!

Mittens fitted in easily - he was a very 'outdoor' cat, coming in to eat and sleep then disappearing. So for a while we had four cats. Then, in 2018 we had a new 'visiting' cat - a beautiful long haired black cat, who would come to our garden and watch the birds. Eventually he too found his way into the house and we would come home and find him sleeping upstairs. He didn't have a collar, so one day I put a collar on him and attached a note along the lines of  " Who am I? Where do I live? I'm spending a lot of time at ..." and adding my phone number. I got a call later from a lady who told me the cat was called Bertie and that he did have a home. Chancer! 

July 2018, one of our first photos of Bertie

He still came around a lot, especially during lockdown in 2020. Twice the lady arrived with his cat box to take him home. But he always returned the next day. He appeared to have set up home here. Occasionally when I would call his owner, she would tell me she hadn't seen him for days. (Why wasn't she phoning me???) I guess you can imagine the rest of the story - last November  (2023) I phoned her and asked if she would like us to 'adopt' him - I was worried that he had not been getting his vet checks and vaccinations.  She said she would have to speak to the daughter that had given him to her as a kitten. The next day she phoned back and said we could keep him. Next stop - the vets!

So now Bertie, our Tuxedo cat has been officially with us for a year!

In case you are wondering, we haven't ended up with five cats. Sadly our lovely Taz and Toto are no longer with us. So we are still a three cat family, one (Mia) whom we chose and two who chose us as their family. We are glad they did.

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