Jill McGown

I don’t think I would have chosen to have a new cat just yet, but as is the way of these things, this one just happened to us. As you may know, my sister Una and I share this house, and she works in the magistrates’ court in Corby. Someone passing the police station on his way to the court heard very loud miaows coming from the thicket between the two buildings, and in a bush, he found a brown tabby kitten, starving, and – we were to discover – host to a fairly remarkable number of parasites. He picked it up and took it to the court, where Una found herself in charge of it. Everyone’s best guess was that it was around four months old, and clearly hadn’t had any food for a very long time, but its coat was beautiful, its eyes and skin were clear, and it was very clean, despite everything.

Una brought him home, there being not much else she could do, since none of the cat sanctuaries had any vacant places. She bought a litter tray and kitten food, and he ate so frantically that we thought he would immediately be sick, but he wasn’t. Then he tried to eat the cat litter. Neither of us had much intention of keeping him – apart from anything else, we thought he must belong to someone, as he had used the tray as soon as he needed to relieve himself, having by that time figured out that the litter wasn’t for eating, and he was entirely happy to be handled. But none of our enquiries produced a lost tabby kitten, and when we took him to have his unwelcome visitors treated, the vet said that in his opinion no-one had ever owned him, since no house-cat could have come by that number of fleas, whatever sort of house he lived in. The fact that he used his litter tray was apparently of no significance; according to him, cats are born house-trained.

So now he’s been de-everythinged, is currently being brought to his fighting weight in order that he can have his injections, and he is absolutely beautiful – in fact, he’s so pretty that everyone (illogically and anthropomorphically) thought he was a girl, but he isn’t. So, what with that, and where he was discovered, his full name is Boy George Bush, but you can call him George. He is a delightful kitten; entirely good-natured and gentle, with a purr like a jet engine, and no thought of scratching or biting, not even when he’s playing – which I’m glad to say that he now is. At first, when I offered him Frankie’s old play-mouse, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it. If you couldn’t eat it, he wasn’t interested. Now, he plays with it all the time. He began experimentally batting about on the carpet in the living room, then picked it up in his mouth and trotted into the kitchen with it, where he could send it spinning much more satisfactorily on the tiles. It’s got one eye, no ears, and no tail, but he loves it.

We’ve had him a week now, and after that first starving acceptance of it, he said kitten food was for wimps, and is eating grown-up cat food. I don’t know him very well yet, but his temperament seems very like one of our previous cats, a big black softie called Charlie. Charlie’s only recorded act of violence was when he and his mother (a small black cat called Baby) were lying in front of the fire, sleeping. Well – Baby was sleeping; Charlie was trying to sleep, but Baby was snoring, and Charlie’s ears twitched and he shifted uncomfortably every time she did. Eventually, he stood up, walked over, hit her, then walked back and curled up again. It worked, and he at last got some shut-eye.

Looks-wise he has big paws and long whiskers, so I think he’s going to be a big cat, like our last tabby, Dylan. He’s certainly growing very fast – I think he’s twice the size he was when he was found. We got Dylan not long after we lost Charlie, as it happens – Charlie lived to be eighteen, so it was very like losing Frankie; we weren’t really in the market for another cat so soon. But Dylan had belonged to friends of my other sister, Patti, a couple who subsequently split up. Neither of them was able to take Dylan with them, and they had left him with someone who was supposed to be looking after him, but wasn’t. Patti rescued him, and we got him. We already knew about Dylan, whose claim to fame was that he could open the fridge, and sure enough, he could. If we forgot to put the kitchen stool against the fridge when we went to bed, it would be open in the morning, and his tin of food would be on the floor. It was in the days before they’d thought of these plastic lids for opened tins, so it was only covered with clingfilm, but despite his expertise with fridge doors, he never did work out how to get the clingfilm off. And he never took anything else out – just his own food.

Sorry there’s no photograph of George, but though I have taken some, they’re still in the camera. I’m thinking of getting a digital camera so I can put photographs straight on to the web site, but I haven’t got one yet, so I still have to wait for the film to be finished before getting the photos developed. Next month, I hope to let you see him.

OK, non-cat people, you can come back now!

And another bit of news. I was interviewed by the Glasgow Herald. They have a London base, and one of their reporters wanted to do a piece on Corby, having done one twenty years ago when the town was still reeling from the closure of the steelworks. As I may have mentioned elsewhere on this site, Corby is a Scottish town that has somehow found itself right in the middle of England, and the Scottish papers are always interested in it. He found this website while trawling the Internet, and came to see me, complete with a photographer. I don’t know if his article will ever see the light of day – I think he’s waiting for a news angle before publishing it – but if it does, I’ll let you know.

So there you are – you wait months for a newsletter with something approaching news in it, and then two bits of news come along at once.

Back to more mundane things. Last month’s competition was a bit of a stinker, as it turned out. It wasn’t deliberate – the detail is picked by Pedalo, the people who manage the site, and though I did work out the correct answer, I wasn’t convinced that I had, and had to seek the official verdict. It wasn’t, as so many of you thought, a detail from the stained glass window of St Leonard’s, but one from the trees in front of the police station – the very police station outside which George was found. Anyway – congratulations to those of you who did spot it, especially to the five winners, who have been notified. It remains to be seen whether this month’s is difficult or easy, but have a go anyway. It doesn’t cost anything, so you might as well. Don’t forget that you can choose to receive a copy of Shred of Evidence or the Lloyd and Hill TV movie, if you win first prize.

What else? British Telecom are still trying to fix the broadband without success, and have missed two appointments in a row. I think that means I get some more compensation. They now think they’ve traced the fault to the telegraph pole, but apparently it’s due for renewal anyway, so I expect that’s complicating matters. We shall see. Watch out for next month’s thrilling instalment…

By the time I talk to you again, I shall be a year older, but fear not, I won’t be any wiser. I’ve given up on that.

See you in September!

Love,
Jil

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