Black Cat Appreciation Day

I actually forgot that Monday the thirteenth August is Teefer’s Gotcha Day. It was seven years and four days ago that I made the trip up north to pick her up. I left home at three in the morning, had breakfast with my friend in Blairgowrie at half past five and drove straight up to Tain, thirty miles north of Inverness. A twelve hour, four hundred and eighty five mile round trip, but she was worth it.

I’d lost Button, my wee tortie and white girl at the beginning of the month and I wanted a new companion for Maly (not that he appreciated her at first), so spent a week or so trawling all the rescue sites on line. I reckoned I would just know when I saw her, but I thought it would be another calico. Then I came across this one on the Cats Protection Speyside page. She had been named Honey because her fosterer’s husband said that she was the sweetest cat he’d ever met, but she had been in a pen for over six months because no one was interested in a cat with a foot missing.

When I phoned, I discovered that, due to overcrowding, she had been moved up to Tain, but I was determined she was mine. I brought her home, but after a week or two, my vet said the best thing would be to amputate her leg. She has never let this hold her back and although she is such a crabbit wee spitfire, I wouldn’t change her for the world. Today is Black Cat Appreciation Day, apparently, so it seems appropriate.