(August 2020)
“What greater gift than the love of a cat”
– Charles Dickens
We got Robbie when we moved into our flat together in Harrogate; we moved in in May, Robbie came to us in June, in a cardboard box from a farm in Sunderland. He was already named Charlie but within hours we’d recognised his crazy character and started calling him Robbie after Robbie WIlliams fame, it totally suited him. Nicknamed Bob, Bobbie and Bob-cat, even ‘Boof’ by Tegan as a baby.
So for the full 20 years that Nick and I have lived together as an engaged couple and then married, in our Harrogate homes and as our 3 children arrived, we have had Robbie with us. ‘What if he was the glue holding us together?’ Nick joked as we were falling asleep, processing the goodbye we had said to our cat that day…..we’ll just have to work a bit harder then!
When we lived in the flat he was a crazy kitten; racing up and down the curtains from one end of the living room through the hall and up the back door in the kitchen. He used to slot himself into the built in wine rack and stare out as us with fierce little green eyes.
He had friends in the building; ‘Poochy’ a barrel of an old lady cat lived opposite and downstairs there were two cats who defended their territory whenever Robbie dared to venture through it. He once went missing for 2 weeks and returned through his cat flap one evening, meowing about his adventures, visibly thinner and covered in a fine yellow dust. Another time we were woken in the night by an almighty clatter, it sounded as if our back door was being broken into. Nick jumped up on the bed as ‘something’ crashed through into our bedroom ‘There’s a lion in the room!’ he shouted in his half asleep state as we both witnessed a crazed shape with a mane like headdress trying to get under our bed. I flicked the light on and all went quiet, there was Robbie, cowering against our wardrobe with half of a cat flap stuck around his head. His inquisitiveness also caused an unfortunate event where he got stuck in a carrier bag, racing around the flat trying to fight his way out of it and bumping into things, it is funny in hindsight but was pretty traumatic for him and us at the time. We were once looking after Poochy whilst our neighbours were away and we’d left the flat doors opposite each other open so the cats could socialise, never expecting Robbie to trot into their apartment, investigate the living room and make his way up their chimney, bringing a load of soot back and leaving little black paw prints all over their lush cream carpet.
Probably more significantly he survived the arrival of our three children. Tegan used to come up onto our bed as a baby, bashing her hand on the duvet and shouting for ‘Boof!’ and Robbie would oblige, jumping up to delight her. As the children have grown up they have adapted to him, as he has become an old man, his age they have been in awe and respect of. They have been proud when he has chosen their lap to lie on, delighted when he has come to them meowing for some food or to be let out. They have been patient with his ailments and mishaps and have always passed him in the kitchen with a pat or a stroke. They taught him to sit in his ‘special cardboard box’ at Christmas, he learnt to wrap his paws around Tegan’s neck as she learnt to pick him up, he even mastered cricket with a tin foil ball, able to hit it for a four or a six across the kitchen floor.
In his early days he always brought us presents, we’d wake up to birds, parts of birds and mice laid out on the floor outside our bedroom door, he’d be fast asleep, tired from a night of hunting whilst I quietly cleared up his offerings. In his later years whenever Nick was away from home overnight he would sleep on the landing outside our bedrooms to keep guard. He was a very ‘human’ cat at times, tuning in to feelings, getting in our suitcases or going off in a sulk when we were preparing for holidays, sitting on the bench at the kitchen table when we had family meals or meetings to remind us of his importance and always meowing to let us know his requirements!
Robbie was patient when the children’s attention turned to the strange mammal (hamster called Storm) trapped inside a green ball that rolled it’s way around the house, bashing into skirting boards and doorways. He has observed the arrival of the rabbits with an old man’s gaze and tolerance. He watched Benny’s remote control cars whizz past on endless evenings, never tempted to pounce. Even Edward, who we joke could have a pet carrot and still call it cute but doesn’t feel as comfortable handling real animals, had found a place for Robbie, not too close, but next to him on the sofa whilst he completes his school work, one hand on his tablet and the other occasionally stroking his cat.
Robbie was exactly 20 ¼ yrs old when we finally said ‘Goodbye’ to him yesterday. He had a kidney tumour that was growing rapidly and his health was deteriorating very quickly day by day. We phoned the vets to find out when Maurice was available as he had been Robbie’s brilliant vet for all of his life. How many people can claim to have the same Dr who really knows them for all their time on this earth, this is one of the many ways that pets are very lucky. Fortunately for Robbie, Maurice was in yesterday, as was the veterinary nurse that Robbie particularly liked. We all took him in the car where he sat on my lap on a cushion, actually enjoying a car ride that wasn’t in a box. They took him in to be sedated then brought him back out to us where he laid in Nick’s arms to fall asleep whilst we all stroked his head and kissed him Goodbye (his head by the way, still smelling vaguely of hand lotion where Tegan and Benny had decided he needed a better fragrance to his head the day before). We then handed him back over and he went away from us, fast asleep, wrapped in a blanket.
We didn’t come straight home, instead we went out for pizza and toasted our lovely, loyal, handsome funny cat goodbye. We’re missing something in our house this morning but twenty years is a good innings and what a great addition he has been to our family life, what lessons in nurture and patience the children have learnt and what a great companion he has been to Nick and I as we have lived through our first two decades as us.
