Spoiler: in 2020, after literally years of begging, Francis and I got a cat 🐱 🎉. I appreciate that, as an adult, I could have adopted a cat independently, but that’s not how long-term relationships work (apparently). This is the story of lockdown and my daring journey to a cat!
Full disclaimer, I’ve wanted a cat since… Well, I cannot remember exactly when, but this post is going to be a long one: an ode to cats, if you will. Let’s say I wanted a cat since I was around 10 – it was probably around then. That means I’ve wanted one for almost two decades: you could say I’m an expert at wanting cats.
Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
My first cat-related memory is one of the rare times my mum was subject to a hangover. It just so happened that, on this day, our neighbour knocked on the door with a KITTY CAT!! Her child had an allergy so she couldn’t take it, and it had been found down our road by a skip. My brother and I got one over on her for that evening because: hangover. All of a sudden, we had a cat. That cat was a little ginger baby, probably a tomcat, because 4/5 ginger cats are boys. Genetics.
We gave it tuna, possibly milk (it was in a time before the common internet and we didn’t know cats were lactose intolerant – I can’t even remember whether we did, leave me alone), and loved it. The cat slept in my bed (my brother has since confessed he didn’t want to be mauled in his sleep).
I remember kitty stretched its claws against my neck. We had a moment of understanding: we could both hurt the other, but we didn’t. My heart? Gone.
The next morning, we had to go to school. The house was not kitted out for kitties, so kitty was outlawed to the garden.
Disaster
Later that day, kitty had gone.
Allergic child had chucked some rocks at it and it ran away.
I still haven’t forgiven that kid, who is now an adult. The thought of my tiny kitty cat running around Oxford all alone is awful. I hate that I don’t know that it went to an amazing home. For the short time we had the cat, we named it Marmalade.
Any time I saw a ginger cat for months afterwards, my heart stopped – but for Marmalade and I, it was not to be. My daring journey to a cat had to be stretched out for a little longer.
Then Came 2020
Fast-forward to 2020: I had grown up and, after nagging Francis for a cat, we’d settled on guinea pigs due to not immediately moving in together (young love involves parental pet permission). The thing about guinea pigs (which are great pets by the way, but that’s for another post) is that once you start, it’s not easy to wean.
So, by 2020, we’d finally moved in together and had some lovely piggies.
In February, there were whisperings of a nasty virus. There was talk of everything shutting. For some strange reason, Francis didn’t totally veto me looking at adoption websites (I’d been low-key wearing him down for a decade, which could have been a factor).
A Triangular Face
The first picture I saw of Mimi was a little triangular ginger face looking out with terrified eyes. She’d had a rough time of it and had been picked up as a stray in the countryside. She had been feral, and not comfortable around people AT ALL; she needed a lot of time and patience. And to top it off, she was a rare ginger girl, who needed us.
You can see where this was heading. We’ve reached the lockdown portion of my daring journey to owning a cat.
Eventually, we applied (“we might not even get picked“), and waited. They got in contact and asked for pictures of our home (“we don’t have to say yes“), which (after a tidy) we sent. We arranged to pick her up on the 24th March (“if it doesn’t work out after a proper try, they will find a better home for her“).
Adoption Day
The day finally arrived. I was working from home in a new job (which was a little bit mentally challenging) and my boss had given me the all-clear for time off if needed; Francis has a practical role, and his office was closed. Lockdown was getting serious at this point, and the latest news was that people should not be leaving their homes, with legislation to follow imminently.
The adoption centre where Mimi was based was a 2.5-3 hour drive away from us… We were due to pick her up first thing, but didn’t want to make the trip without confirmation that we could pick her up… So we waited and tried calling and kept waiting and trying to call… I don’t think we could even get a hold of someone.
Then, my phone rang.
Thankfully, someone had the foresight to be making outbound calls to check that adopters were coming. The reason, I kid you not, was so that there would be no extra animals in the centre coming into lockdown – it was that close to the line. It was the last day adoptions would be taking place.
We jumped into the car and sped down south.
Sudden Owners
Devon is not a fun place to drive in the sticks. There are a lot of steep hills and single track roads. I had to keep backing down a hill because of a flow of farm traffic five minutes away from the adoption centre. By the time we finally reached it, I was in an absolute state.
Because it was the very beginning of lockdown, it was still strange to see everybody in masks. The centre was wrapping up its operations and were working out how to perform final adoptions without contact. We couldn’t meet Mimi before she was ours.
Thankfully the staff members were kind enough to let us pop to the loo while they were loading her up… It had been a long drive and we avoided unnecessary stops because deadly virus.
We’d paid the adoption fee, were passed the papers, and, finally, were handed back our carrier.
That was it. Everything else was complete.
We had a cat.
On the way home from this rather surreal experience, all we saw of our new feral friend was a teeny tiny paw sticking through one of the grates in her carrier. We’re pretty sure she was actually testing its integrity, but it looked super cute to the uninitiated.
Home At Last
I can’t remember which of us carried her into our home, but she got inside somehow! When the centre owners said she was feral, they weren’t lying: she wasn’t used to humans at all. Thankfully, it was lockdown, and I had no issue extending my daring journey to a cat by a few days. Or weeks. Perhaps months.
But she made progress every week – and it was so rewarding watching her learn to trust us. We became her people, and I felt like I was paying something back to Marmalade with my patience.
So that’s the tale of lockdown and my daring journey to a cat – we actually have two now, but that’s a story for another day!
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