Woven With Gold Strings: Handsome cats

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Handsome cats

Smeagol was a handsome cat, black & white and handsome. Strider is handsome too... and black & white... both proper cats!

When we lived in Pittenweem for a year, we were concerned about Smeagol settling into a new life. He had to endure a long drive up to Scotland and then get to know his new territory. This was all the more difficult for him because he had by now lost a lot of his sight... he was sixteen when we moved.

He had gradually lost his sight when we lived in Yorkshire. He coped with it very well as he was very familiar with his home and garden but we just didn’t know how he would manage with a strange new home. His sight got worse in Scotland and by the time we moved to Cumbria he was completely blind. He was a remarkable cat and took everything in his stride. He settled well into all his new homes and would always find his way around with the help of his thick skull which he would use to knock into chair legs and door frames to help find his way!

I got Smeagol (and Deagol) as kittens when I lived in Northampton. They both travelled up to Yorkshire with me but poor Deagol went missing when I lived in Pontefract. Smeagol came with me to Wakefield where Sarah and I lived after getting married. Smeagol moved a total of four times.

We are moving house again soon!... just to the next village... but now Strider is going to have to find out about new territories and new neighbours. Strider is a young cat and loves to be outdoors. He found us (we still don’t know for sure where he came from but we think he could have been a farm cat) and where we live now is very much his neighbourhood. We’re not looking forward to keeping him indoors at the new house as we know he’ll just want to be outdoors, but it’s the best way to make sure he won’t try and find his way back ‘home’!

Our new house needs a bit of work before we move in including, among many other things, a new back door. The first question we asked the joiner was “can you put a cat flap in..........?!"

Smeagol
Pittenweem July 2008

Strider
Holker July 2013

1 comment:

UnknownSeptember 23, 2013 at 9:50 PM
Uncanny resemblance!!
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Thanks.
David.

Woven with Gold Strings

When we found ourselves without our beloved Smeagol, we realised how much we missed the company of a cat. He had been with us both for fifteen years and I had got him when he was just eight weeks old. Smeagol passed away in March 2012, he would have been twenty years old that year!

We decided to plant an acer tree and bury his ashes under it. We found the tree we wanted from Abi and Tom's Garden Plants, a Kinran acer. Tom told us Kinran translated to Woven with Gold Strings.

Whilst we were deliberating about getting another cat and whether another cat could replace Smeagol, a stray cat started paying visits to our garden. He looked very young and was remarkably similar in appearance to Smeagol. He took to sleeping under Smeagol’s acer tree by the back door and when he finally decided to come into our house, he took to sleeping on his chair too!

Nearly one year later, Strider is as much a part of our home as Smeagol ever was.

I recently started a blog about how my Mum & Dad met and married in India. There are so many wonderful old black & white family photos of us all as children and of Mum & Dad when they were younger. Sunlight from the Nilgiris is about our history. As much as I enjoy writing about these old photos from our past, I’ve decided I also want to write about and show photos from more recent times, including today and tomorrow.... and it’s not just about cats!