Come in number 9.

Obituary – Miss Fluffy Knickers (2001ish – 2017).

The house is in mourning following the predictable yet merciful passing of ‘the cat’. One of the greatest yet most sorely misunderstood cats of her or any generation she remained a mystery, enigma and total pain in the arse to her last breath.

Miss Fluffy Knickers (or Iona to her friends, if she’d had any) was born into horrific circumstances and was basically treated like shit for 6 months until she found her way to the front desk of an animal rescue centre, complaining of domestic abuse. Whether she would have been slightly less foul tempered without said abuse will always remain a puzzle.

She would be rescued in short time by a kindly Dundee/Cockney crossbreed with a heart of fudge – my future piglet, lobster and squirrel and also conveniently named ‘the wife’. Under her warm wing ‘the cat’ blossomed into a fearsome hairy creature capable of clogging up the hardiest of vacuum cleaners and able to show affection with a hiss and a swipe simultaneously. For many years the two lived in harmony, leaping through meadows to the Black Beauty theme tune in a month that was forever May.

Then I came along and gave ‘the cat’ a proper run for her money. Never a huge fan of ‘newcomers’ or ‘men’ (we’re talking about the cat here, not me) I became a suitable adversary and sparring partner, our mutual affection often manifesting itself as ill-disguised hatred. Over time a true love began to grow and once in a while, if ‘the wife’ was away and I was bored or very lonely, I would let her pad onto my lap and curl up, purring semi-gratefully until we’d had enough of each other.

Her final years were marked by a series of amusing/alarming judders down the ladder of physical and mental health, throughout which she remained consistent purely through the luxurious depth and fluffiness of her fur, a majestic coat which would have been the envy of every other cat in the neighbourhood if she’d been bothered to venture 3 inches beyond the end of the garden and meet any of the inferior bastards.

Always eccentric (probably without realising it) ‘the cat’ was also capable of showing warmth as evidenced by the times we entertained guests, during which she would disappear completely or might occasionally slink down the stairs to criticise the choice of food in her bowl and then move on through the cat flap for a dump. The guests meanwhile would stare, jaws dropped, as if a Dodo in a Nazi uniform had just wandered past.

A fighter to the very end, Iona passed away in relative peace, no longer burdened by the need to perform her last acquired party trick of urinating on the bare floor whilst eating cat litter from her tray. She leaves behind a very loving Mummy and (step?) Daddy, a few boxes of spurned food (make us an offer), two litter trays (because one just wasn’t enough for, was it) and an abundance of wonderful memories. She never boasted or cared about her joint status of ‘best cat in the world’ and ‘most ungrateful pest in existence’ and is almost certainly irreplaceable. Especially by some huge daft Maine Coon cat that ‘the wife’ keeps going on about and which we’re definitely (probably) not getting (getting).

RIP Little Miss Fluffy Knickers XXXXXXXXX

G B Hewitt. 11.3.2017