About 20 months ago my cat, Patrick, popped out of the cat door for the last time. He was 14 years old, and had been diagnosed with the not uncommon cat ailment of hyperthyroidism. It was being treated, but must have worsened faster than the treatment could keep up, and he died in the neighbour’s garden one night.

Patrick had been my mother’s cat, and I had taken him in when she went to the rest home. I hadn’t intended to get another cat, but they do seem to find their way to us regardless, eh? After he went, I knew it would be difficult to have any more, as I lived in the front flat on a busy road.

That’s how it stayed for a while – then I got Phoenix.

My sister does cat rescue, and it wasn’t too long before I was doing some fostering gigs after Patrick went. They ended when I kept the second foster cat who came my way, Phoenix. She was 13 when she ended up staying with me, and there was something about her which gave me the feeling she would be a long liver.

However, I was wrong.

Being an older cat, she wasn’t much interested in going wandering, so the busy road wasn’t an issue. What got her in the end was that her breathing packed up. It had become very laboured, to the point that it was clear she wasn’t going to last much longer, so I made the hard decision to take her on the no-return trip to the vet. When the vet saw Phoenix, she said that in her experience when a cat’s breathing gets like hers was, it was either heart disease or lung cancer.

It’s always hard to lose one’s companion animal, and my flat felt empty. I eventually shared the news of Phoenix’s demise with my sister, and also conveyed that I wouldn’t be tying myself down with another cat – at least not for a while. The feeling of emptiness does diminish after a while, and I desired the freedom of not being curtailed with responsibility for another being, to see where that took me.

Two days later, I had a six(ish) months old foster kitten. Impressive how long I held out, wasn’t it?

The kit was a super-friendly and smoochy wee number, I was told, which is why my sister wanted her fostered out until her new owner, who is already lined up, could take her. Normally, cats and kittens stay in big crates at my sister’s place until they’re de-sexed and vaccinated. Most of them adjust okay to this, as they are initially timid and wary, but occasionally one is just the opposite and wants to be your best friend straight away. Beatrice was such a kit.

Four days after her arrival, my sister unexpectedly collected her again due to a change of circumstances. And once more I’m looking at the enticing prospect of having no responsibilities. So far, though, I’m wary of relaxing into this too much, as I have comprehensively proved I can’t be relied on not to be taken in by a needy, or darling, cat story.

And, who knows, maybe after a while I’ll find that the freedom I’m curious about isn’t all I imagined it to be, and ‘footloose and fancy-free’ can get rather stale, or just doesn’t eventuate. But I’d like to have the space to at least have a crack at it, and how it might look for the older woman I now am. This could either be a great big non-event, go really well, or terribly wrong. The thing with being an older woman, is that there can be a strong desire to let some of the rules we’re told we need to live by fly out the window. Once they’ve flown, it’s anybody’s guess what happens after that.

Perhaps I’ve already opened that window, if the finger I’ve flipped on my Substack blog to the current trend of believing that any ol’ man who says he’s a woman is one, and entrenching that into policies, is anything to go by. This has earned me the honour of being a ‘bad bitch’ amongst the woke set, so the path may already be laid for even more unencumbering of those rules.

Whatever transpires, though, I can almost guarantee one thing – there’s every possibility I’ll be writing “I’ve got another cat” blog someday.

In the meantime, here’s my sister’s YouTube channel with short clips of her cats, both the permanent residents, and those ready for adoption. They’re great clips, whether or not you’re interested in having a cat. https://www.youtube.com/@oncewewerewildnz

This is one of my favourite scenes from one of the videos – it’s like they’re waiting for the rapture – lol!