Communal cats

 In our small flat, we're not allowed to keep a pet. We love cats, so we make up for our lack of cat by borrowing some of the many neighbourhood moggies.

There are four small black cats locally. This pic is one of the two who are brother and sister. We call them 'The Invisible Tabby' and 'The Invisible Tabby's Brother' because in sunlight they have subtle tabby markings.

Then we have another brother and sister pair - Earl and Assam. They have name tags and we approve of their names (named after types of tea) so they've stayed with their given names.

Earl is quite a lot smaller than Assam. They're both nice-natured animals who like cuddles and bits of string. I suspect they're Burmese.











This handsome ginger fellow we named 'Weasley' after the red-headed family in the Harry Potter books. We saw him a bit as a kitten but haven't seen him much since then. In fact this might be the only time he's been in. Either he's indoors a lot or just doesn't hang around near our flat.

We call this cat 'Fluffybum' because she's "so fluffy I could die!" and also she seems to suit a silly name.

She's a sweet little thing - very light and tiny under all that fur. She was being badly neglected by her divorcing family and is a bit skittish (though also affectionate and very playful). She has had a happy ending in that another local couple have adopted her. Now she is always beautifully groomed and looking healthy.

Another couple of gratuitous pics of Earl. This is last year when she battled and eventually defeated our Christmas tree. There wasn't anything delicate on the tree so we let her get on with it. (In spite of Earl being a male name, we think she's female cos she's so tiny).

A slightly younger Earl enjoying some strokes on the windowsill.

This cat we call 'Skinnytail'. It's a nasty creature, prone to chasing birds, fighting other cats and attacking the hand that feeds it cat treats.

This one might just be my favourite. We named him 'Cat Treats' because that's what we call to summon him. Also, he's so lovely and smoochy he's a treat for us. He has been known to roll around on the bed and nuzzle my nose with his nose. So sweet!

He's a Norwegian Forest cat with a big ruff and a foofy tail. His owners don't brush him enough so he gets matted fur. We occasionally have a go at snipping out the worst tangles. He's very trusting and quite happy to be groomed.


So, that's most of our neighbourhood cats. We are very lucky that we get visits to cheer us in our catless state.