I am sad to report that Micky, our ginger neighbour, is no longer with us. Micky was a larger-than-life character with a wonderful laid-back personality. His family are missing him terribly of course, but everybody misses him. It is just not the same to get home at night and not have Micky run to meet me at the front doorstep to see what's for dinner. His family did feed him, he just preferred to know what my girls were eating before he committed himself.
He had 18 wonderful years of life. In the last two or three years he had been diagnosed with a heart condition and he took a tablet night and morning – stuffed inside a prawn.
Micky thought he owned our road. He seemed to like sitting on his front step in the morning and watching people leave for work. Often when I opened the curtains on a grey winter's day, seeing Micky lovely ginger and sparking white fur brightened my whole morning. No matter how awful the weather was, Micky’s white paws were always spotless. He kept himself scrupulously clean in the most horrible grey slush. His family thought it was because he was always curled up in somebody else’s house, and he certainly did like to visit some selected neighbours every day.
Years ago one of my neighbours came across to tell me that after we left for work in the morning Micky used to let himself into our house, and he sat on the front window ledge watching the world go by. We have a magnet on our catflap which is only intended to allow our own cats through, but Micky had figured out that he could stick a claw in the rubber seal and pull it out the way then climb under it. We did eventually see him do this – made a noise like someone was breaking in!
The people we bought this house from obviously told Micky that we ran a restaurant, because he was under that impression right from the beginning – always stealing my girls’ food he was.
He loved it here. He found our garden so comfortable …
(Notice Jessica grimacing in the background?)
… and our car
… and our settee, complete with auntie Vio's fleecy pad
… even our bed!
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