The Life and Times of our great cat Earl Grey
During the sunny days of November 1993 Jemma's friend's cat gave birth to a litter of seven kittens. This event as eagerly awaited and watched. Yes we can have a kitten from the litter and after a short while Jemma brought home a small kitten, a new pet after a string of mice and guinea pigs. She was named Tabitha after favourite Peter Rabbit characters, although we never used her full name of Tabitha Twitchett! No sooner had the kitten settled than we were told that a last remaining kitten remained, who didn't seem to have a home, could we have two? History says that we said 'yes' because the little grey brother was eagerly brought home and named Earl Grey.
Many years later we were to travel to Newcastle to the monument of his illustrious forefather:-
No pictures of the pair as kittens can be found in our albums and I spent a happy hour looking, discovering all those forgotten moments of those times and all those smiling faces. I have no doubt Jemma has some in her own albums somewhere.
While they were very small and lived on a sheepskin in a basket in the laundry in Milan Rd we had a catflap installed. This was to be the catalyst for my Cat tales because not only did they venture out but strays came in! I have three major saga tales the first was when they were tiny.
A stray came through the flap hoiked Earl out by his ear and took over the sleeping accommodation. Ever after Earl sported a ragged left ear. his first trip to the Vet! The Stray came to an ignominious end when he overslept when the daylight hours changed and he didn't realize the clocks had gone forward. The story goes on until I stand in the bedroom minus pajamas with bleeding hands waking Penny up while holding the stray by the scruff!
The next was later on when I baled another in the lounge and at 3 30 am constructed an elaborate trap with the french doors and a large box. It all went to custard later in the tale when cracked open the doors and the cat escaped, hitting the back of the box with such force that Penny in pyjamas was sent sprawling and the cat escaped at mach 1 speed.
The third was during their adolescence when they used to disappear a bit. (to miss breakfast though was UNHEARD of!). The untimely death of EG occurred while I was out running before work. There was EG dead on the side of the road! ran home and checked no EG there, motored round and picked the little body up. The story ends with me standing at the graveside under the peach tree, looking up to see EG and Tabitha watching with quizzical looks!
During these energetic days the catflap took a lot of hammering. they used to have epic high speed chases culminating with one of them entering the door with a tremendous bang. I believe one window for the catflap got broken early on and when we left the other was cracked. They carried on their chases to middle age to the extent that the door in this house has a cracked window and that is toughened glass! Energy or not, Earl took over the best places. Right in the doorway was his favourite sprawling place.
He was always on the prowl. Paula reminded me how quick as a flash he would be in the garage before the door was shut. I can't count the number of nights he's spent cooped up in there until someone saw the sad moon face at the window or his more enterprising trick of poking his tail out under the door and waving it like a semaphore signal!
Prowling too into Jemma's bedroom where he would snuffle around on the dressing table till he found an elastic hairtie. he would rush around with it dangling from his mouth till everyone saw it and gave chase. He would disappear under the decking amid shouts of dismay. I guess there are simply dozens still under there.
When the first wood fire of autumn was lit he would run around the house warning everyone going OOOOOOOooooo! He was the first in front of it when it got going though! There so often I called it the cat television!
This was the time he discovered his love of gardening, he always joined us during gardening sessions sniffing around, sharpening claws and climbing all the adjacent trees. Here he is in Eugenia Rise 'helping'
and here he is in the Magnolia tree. We had much higher trees in Milan Rd
and often wondered how he was going to get out of his latest escapade.
Sometimes he took gardening too far, its not as though we're short of ground...
Little Rat!
He also climbed indoors, many a time entering the kitchen in the morning dark I would be confronted by something from Edgar Allen Poe stories crouched on the top of the kitchen cupboards. Jumping down from the height with a loud crash!
He was a great mouser & we'd find all sorts of presents on the mat. Sometimes there'd be a HUGE rat! Sometimes he brought live ones in!! We'd have mice chases indoors with him NOT helping one jot but rather would watch us with 'cat amusement'. He used to explore under the house when I'd deliberately leave the door open. He'd return ages later covered in cobwebs.
As he matured into THE cat he lorded over Tabitha with an iron paw. She in return became a recluse. A surprising thing happened though when we moved and had to spend about eight weeks at Paula's place. The cats were forced to live in a very large dog box. Earl was always trying to explore the house but during the day they were kept in the garage. At night they both slept on top of each other. Unheard of before and since. However gradually they came to terms with each other's presence with less and less spats.
Me first by the fire!
As he got older Tabs got bolder and sometimes leapt out on him to his great consternation.
There was a huge contrast in the way that they approached their first outing into the garden after their acclimation at Eugenia Rise. Tabitha crept around inspecting every inch of the perimeter wall of the house. Earl on the other hand was off like a rocket, up on the fence an returned much later with tales of the neighbouring houses and gardens. He never explored the Park and probably only a few times the bush on the other side of the road, thank goodness. Definitely a home cat although now I think of it the number of times I've gone out during the night in pyjamas with the BB gun or air rifle to sort out some noisy quarrel has been quite large. Mind you he was something to be reckoned with at his gorgeous best. 5.7kg. two tone fur black ends, grey under. Birds, cats and mice look out!
He loved his tickles! He perfected the trick of falling down in front of you on his side and the wind came out of him with a little 'oof.' Here he is waiting..
Everyone had to partake..
He was always at the top of the stairs when we returned home and if it was near teatime he would greet us halfway down the stairs calling "Now, Now!" under the glass partition. Any time you went into the kitchen, guess would appear as if by magic by the bench.
Sociable animal that he was we should have made him a little tuxedo for parties he would have loved it. Party time meant being thrown out into the laundry. That never lasted long he was always appearing among the guests somehow. I bet some people are still wondering where their cheese went! Of course after the barbecue there was always something to find
And of course whenever bacon and eggs were being eaten outside he had to have the rind. fish and chip nights he adored cos a small portion would always go his way
Time passed though and one run-in led to a trip to the vet with an infected bite. Wonder how the other one got on?
He spent more time on laps. The ritual was to hop onto my lap (he always avoided this if I had shorts on) and after a brief hello would transfer to Penny's lap for an in depth snooze.
More and more time was spent here too..
Guess who's taken over this prime spot now.
Getting on in years now, 15, something like 76 human years saw age problems coming on. First he had teeth problems and couldn't eat you should have cleaned his teeth said the vet! He had a lot out but recovered well after that we put him on tinned food. The vet pointed out that he had poor kidney function but he didn't like the special food so that was that.
As time passed the sunshine finally got to his English pale nose and he got horrible scabs that the vitamin A cream which he hated, would do no good. He had part of his nose removed and though it was a great struggle for an old cat, he pulled through stoically and became good as new. See our thousand dollar cat!
The funny thing was now he would groom himself! No more of the greasy streaky fur but now LOTS of licks. Also he found he could sing. He was a beautiful baritone and to reach some of the richer notes his mouth would turn into a little "O" He would sing at any time any place, I once found him at it sitting in the laundry basin.
With the singing came an increase in the times that the pair of them thought it would be a good idea to announce when coming back from a foray at say, 4 am! Earl was particularly loud. sometimes they would deliberately park in the corridor ready for morning. I used to have slippers handy by the side of the bed for this and sometimes Earl would set up Tabs to take the hurled slipper while he scooted off! Here they are ready.
Everything went along in it's usual rhythm. October and November last year saw lots of birds hatching in our garden which I have blogged about. Earl simply helped me find them, although I think he still might have played with them if I'd let him.
After our return from holiday break in February we were alarmed by the few tins he had consumed. We put it down to the extreme heat but soon we were buying all sorts of gourmet foods to whet his appetite. We gave up weighing him. Finally we thought he had had a scrap with a nearby tom his paw bled and he'd lost a claw. It didn't heal so back to the vet where all sorts of medical problems were evident. He got an antibiotic and we took some special food which he totally refused after a second bite! Lap time was much reduced and he only lay on Penny's lap.
Well, we had to go back for a checkup a fortnight later. Unfortunately this was a scrape Earl couldn't get out of. At 17 years and 9 months, the grand old age of 87 in human years, on the 7 th July he went to sleep in my tickling hands, a much loved cat by all.
If he could have understood I would have said "thanks for all the affection you've given us over the years". I think he knew.
Have I forgotten anything? Yes lots, we shall always share Earl stories.
Finally, when returning sadly from the vet, I found the last thing that Earl did was to pee on my seedling tray.....Last laugh to Earl.. little rat!
