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| Polly up the willow tree at Blidworth, watching the birds, she could always get up but never get down. |
A sad note today, but I couldn't let Polly go without sharing her with everyone and immortalising her on the internet.
In a mad moment nearly 20 years ago, we decided it would be a good idea to get a couple of kittens.We went to a cat rescue centre where we were shown to a cage of kittens who'd been rescued with their mother from a cupboard in a house where the owners had moved and left them behind. There sitting cool as a cucumber with her little legs crossed was a little brown tabby cat, it was love at first sight and she was ours along with a little tortoiseshell called Bess.
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| The naughty new kittens Polly and Bess |
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| Kimberley being Kimberley! |
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| After Polly & bess came Polly & Kimberley |
A strange tale but at the time my in laws had an older tabby cat called Tigger, she had some polyps in her ears and was having them removed. I had the word "polyp" stuck in my head and that's what we called our kitten and shortened it immediately to Polly.
Poor Bess passed away at a very young age, she never survived the anaesthetic when we had them both spayed, we didn't expect that to happen so it was very shocking for us at the time. The lady at the rescue centre convinced us to take Kimberley, a white/tortoiseshell kitten to keep Polly company. Kimberley was a completely bonkers cat who after a couple of years upped and disappeared one day, never to be seen again. We decided Polly was cat enough for us.
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| Always prim and proper |
She started off as a mad kitten who loved to spend hours running into paper bags or doing spectacular leaps after rattling poppy heads. She loved to sleep in bed with us. I was lucky enough to get the head end, Tony didn't do so well! She would wake me up by biting my nose and sometimes, disturbingly by opening my eyes with her paws. We tried to put a stop to it once, but the knocking on the door through the night drove us mad! She would follow us everywhere, she liked to sit on your lap on the toilet or sit on the chair next to you while you had a bath. Once, she decided to take a walk round the outside of the bath and slipped....she didn't try that again!
She was a clumsy little thing and had a special embarrassed look for when she took a leap and didn't quite make it, or fell asleep and slipped off the window ledge.
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| Kitten in a box! |
She used a couple of her lives early on, once walking too close to the gas fire and setting her tail alight and another time slipping off the window while her head was in the curtain pully, I came in to find her dangling with the cord round her neck!
She liked to patrol her territory and alerted us once by fighting the front door to a night time visitor, who we came to know as Crispy. A poor neglected cat who's ears had gone bad, we used to post him food through the letter box to Polly's disgust and gradually we won his trust before grabbing him and taking him to the rescue centre, to be mended and rehomed.
More recently she learned to share her space with a visiting cat Maggie (a boy!). Polly was too old to take on Maggie who was no spring chicken himself, but he was solid and strong. He half moved in with us for a while as his adoptive family had marital issues. Then one day his real owner knocked on the door and said can I have my cat I'm moving to Chesterfield and off he went and Polly had the house to herself again.
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| Cat in a plant pot! |
She was never a great hunter but we did get a few birds and mice as gifts, mostly she liked to chase butterflies on hot sunny days when she could be bothered, but for the most part she loved to find a shady spot under a spirea or gunnera, keep cool in the summer house, or bake in a hot sunny spot like a window ledge or in a sun ray on the carpet and have a good snooze.
In the evenings she liked to be with us. The older she got the more demanding, literally shouting at us or patting us until we complied with a tummy tickle or an ear scratch. She was a great listener and stress reliever, content to sit on your lap and be stroked while you chattered away, I would say she never judged whatever you told her, but every now and again she would give you a look and a swish of her tail before retiring to her basket!
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| Erm.....help yourself! |
Until maybe 3 years ago I think we believed she would go on forever, in fact in December when she had a stroke and recovered quite well in a couple of days, we joked that she would just keep on going and out live us all. In our heart of hearts though we knew the truth. She had a slow decline, but a decline nonetheless, first she went deaf, then her joints started to go, then her thyroid played up, her kidneys needed a bit of medication, then the stroke, then maybe another stroke, then her balance and then her strength.
I hoped and hoped that she would slip away peacefully in her sleep but in the end we had to make the decision for her. It wasn't how I imagined, even though she could no longer eat or drink for herself, it was still such a hard decision to make and knowing that there was a set time and place made us full of dread.
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| Sleeping in the garden |
Polly passed away on Wednesday 15 February 2012, 19 years and 4 months old, a fine age for a cat. I miss her terribly not just her presence missing from the house, no more tippy, tappy footsteps down the hallway, no more fighting her off my keyboard while I'm trying to type, no more Polly sticking her feet in the scissors when I'm cutting fabric or fighting the wrapping paper at birthdays and Christmas, no more Polly trying to get in the fridge for the ham or the tuna whenever you opened the door. I will really miss her when we have a Chinese next, I always saved her a Prawn Cracker, we all loved watching her eat them, goodness knows why she liked them so much.
We are getting used to normal meaning no Polly, but I still consider cat food when shopping, wonder where she is when I leave the house and go down to see her when I get in, I know these things will fade away, but hopefully our memories won't.
Hope you like these little memories of her
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| Best of friends in the end, Pollys last picture |
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Laurens legendary art work
Polly in the Litter Tray
c 2009 |
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ReplyDeleteAh! what a beautiful blog and a fitting memorial to Polly. We had such a lovely time in Brinsley with Polly and family at Christmas, she kept us company every evening snuggling between us on the sofa. No matter how long you stroked her, the minute you stopped for any reason up came the paw to see oy! why have you stopped? Polly will be missed for many reasons but the main one that comes to our minds is when we were on skype talking to Maria Tony and Lauren and along comes Polly ans sits on the keyboard and it was hello from us and goodbye from her. RIP Polly we loved you.
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