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Today would have been Mr AJ aka Angelous’s 18th birthday. It’s been a year and 3 months since he crossed the rainbow bridge and you’d think I’d be okay. The tears still flow. I miss that boy. I miss his brother Diesel or D just as equally and as much.

AJ was the runt of the litter but he was a huge cat. 7kg. A colleague at work asked if we’d like a kitten. I was against it as I knew it’d would be a lot of work. P was yes. End of June we picked him up. I think his dad was a rolling stone, all black. His mama was a slender ginger and white cute little thing. He fitted in the palm of my hands coming back in the car. A year later he was massive!

His first 3 years were spent in London. He always wanted to be outside. He worked out how to open the back door climbing on top of the old spin dryer my Mum got me. We had foxes at the end of the garden in an old shed I swear he was friends with. Some nights he wouldn’t come back no matter how much I called for him. The following morning opening the back door, he’d sprint down the path from the shed to walk inside like nothing happened scary that night. I remember one snowy evening looking out from upstairs along the line of terraced garden fences. There was a fox going under the gaps under the fences with AJ hot on his tail jumping them!

I gave up on collars with him. Every other week for about 4 months I was buying one. He’d come back with it missing. I gave up and let him be collarless. The same expression all grown up!

Right from the start he was never a lap cat. He never sat voluntarily on my lap. But that wasn’t to say I was not his. I remember the first evening I knew I was his hoomin. I’d let him in one night and carried on with what I was doing writing my list. He wouldn’t stop pawing at my pen. I looked at him and he had some other cats ‘dead skin’ claw by his eye! He knew who to ask to help! The first time I was ill with him around, he slept by my side when he could have gone out. He once gave me a present of a half alive massive spider all proud. I screamed and he never gave me presents again! 

Well, he did. One brunch he decided the litter tray wasn’t clean and started to scrabble around in the paper recycling. We were WTF’s he doing. A big poo!!! He fell down the toilet too. I was outside in the garden and heard a crash. Thought nothing of it or a slightly wet cat until I went to use the toilet and found water around it. He loved to balance on the x shaped washing line and run along fences. 

He never slept on the bed in London apart from when you were ill or out.  He preferred a chair. He got the 3 year old tom crystals in his bladder. He hid it until it was almost too late. He had to stay in cat hospital for a week. I went to visit him and left a confused cat. But I think he understood. He understood a lot of situations. Mama upset, unhappy or crying, a gentle head butt and walk around me. He did that until his later years when he let D take over. I think he was himself in too much pain which I didn’t see. He was also a cat flu carrier but that didn’t stop him. He had 2 bouts of it came out fine.

His, it’s hot pose

Just before moving to Spain, he made a friend with next doors cat. He’d let her in the house and I’d find them snuggling on the sofa! She use to make a run for it, but I knew he liked her! He had an issue peeing on the hall rug I think a seagrass rug. I don’t know if he was marking his territory or he though the rug was better as litter rug. 

The day the pet courier can to take him for Spain was the worst. The noise he made as the guy put him in the box a cry I’ll never forget. Confusion and a look on his face what you doing to me? I’ve done nothing wrong! We had no time to say goodbye, no it’ll be okay. 2 days later after I arrived in Spain I went to pick him up from the airport. He came in his new big box on the back of a forklift truck like nothing happened! 

He hid for a while in the new place until the boxes arrived from London. He settled as they smelt right. He help me unpack getting in all the boxes. He found hiding places up in the kitchen cupboards from the vacuum. 

I knew he was missing his girlfriend so we decided to get another cat, Mr D! I swear he knew. The night before he sat next to me on the sofa arm by my head. Something he never did. Continue reading “Mr AJ aka Angelous” →