Minions! I bring tidings of sadness and joy, with this Very Important Announcement: 
This is Bat. As of two weeks ago, he is my cat. There will be more bad rhyming and that, so hold onto your hat.
Some of you will already be familiar with my two previously-mentioned felines, Matilda and Marmite, both of whom I had since they were little. Matilda is now ten, and I very sadly lost Marmite on the 4th September, the details of which I won’t horrify you with, because frankly I think I have had enough horror for all of us in the last two months. In short form, she was attacked by a bulldog and ultimately had to be put to sleep after almost a month of care in a specialist referral centre, courtesy of a high level of pet insurance coverage.
This was quite possibly the worst month of my life, and I don’t deem myself to have led a particularly sheltered one.
I did always used to say that I would not get any additional cats until both Marmite and Matilda had passed the veil, and then I would start with a new set, as it were. However, whilst I am of course still grieving and will probably never fully get over the circumstances of Marmite’s ultimate demise, one thing that became very clear to me very soon after her death was that one cat is not the appropriate number of cats to have for me: Need More Cat.
Added to this, I feel that as a cat lover, and someone who is frankly very judgemental about people breeding kittens and giving up their pets, whilst I am able to offer a new cat a home, I have something of a duty to do so.
Ergo I adopted Bat, or Batman Salem Slinkycat, to give him his full title. This does of course mean that I get to call him in for his tea by yelling “dinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerBATMAN!”
So Bat is around five months old, male, semi-longhaired, and the proud grower of some of the most impressive ear foliage I have ever seen.
He is food obsessed-he will literally fight you for a bit of whatever you have, and yesterday, used me as a springboard whilst I was bending down to put a piece of cheese back in the fridge, in order to vault over to the worktop and grab the biggest mouthful of grated cheese you ever did see, before zooming off with it to hide under the bed.
He is fluent in meow, sleeps a lot, and is very affectionate. I tend to think that he was weaned too early, as he is apt to climb up your back and try to suckle in your armpit given the chance, to the point that he soaks the whole of your shoulder with cat spit.
So, what does Matilda make of him? Well, ‘Tilds has never been the only cat, aside from the two months whilst first of all Marmite was in the clinic, and then afterwards whilst I picked up the pieces of my broken heart. She is always the boss cat, but she is not aggressive and is very tolerant of other cats, so I didn’t foresee a major problem with integrating Bat. I interviewed Matilda about her thoughts two weeks on, and she had this to say:
“So there I was, just sleeping on my bed and stuff, and then I turned around and I was all like dude WTF is that? And this kitten was all like, oh hi I’m Bat nice to meet you can I share your bed want to play hey look a toy wow you smell funny HEY why r u growling? And I was all like OMG WTF who are you, get away from me! MUM!!!”
Poor Matilda probably had high hopes that we were well past the annoying kitten stage by her tenth year of life. However, she has been absolutely brilliant with him, growling or hissing a little when he needs to be told, but never chasing after him or attacking him.
Bat, for his part, is madly in love with Matilda and follows her everywhere, to Matilda’s total disgust. Also, he is absolutely no respecter of personal space:
So, welcome Bat, you have some very big paws to fill, but you seem to be up to the task. And finally, one piece of wisdom that I would like to share with all of you as a result of losing Marmite:
Hug your friends. They might be the only thing holding you up when you need them.
Hug your pets. Their lives are short, and they won’t be with you forever.
Insure your pets. Because hugs don’t pay the bills.
Peace out, y’all.
