Bag of Tricks

I was so busy not blogging last autumn that I think I overlooked introducing my new feline friend.

This is Bellatrix, and she came from Chesterfield Cats' Protection. I got her in early October and she celebrated her first birthday (more or less accurate to within a month or so) at Hallowe'en.

She's called Bellatrix because ... the first cat I visited was called Annabelle, and then I went to see another one called Callie. Callie had been in a foster home for ages because of the age-old thing of black cats being less popular. At one point I thought I might have them both, and then they would have been called Bellatrix and Callisto (of course). But when I decided just to have the gentle, playful little black one, Bellatrix just fitted her best.

She's very well behaved, very friendly and really no trouble at all. As you can see, she enjoys helping me with work.

Shortly after I got her, I had a cat flap fitted in my new back door (why I needed a new back door is another story, but I was without an opening one for six weeks, occasioning not least a major rearrangement of the furniture in the front room). But then it was winter and cold and dark, and she didn't seem that bothered about going outside, so the cat flap stayed locked. It's only this last couple of weeks, when the weather has been nice and I've been around that she's finally started to go outside.

And it turns out that she's quite a bold and agile little thing. Not only did she get up on the roof of the extension (or offshot, as it's known in these parts) at the level of the upstairs window, she then proceeded to climb in the window, walk down the stairs, and go back out the catflap.

I very much doubt she'll come boating like the irrepressible, irreplaceable, Willow - I have a reciprocal cat care arrangement with my neighbour round the corner. It is, though, rather nice to have a cat back in my life, having been without one for seven years, for the first time ever since the age of ten.

I dare say you'll be seeing more of Bellatrix - although it is hard to get a decent photo of her.