Heartfelt Goodbye...

...to a dear, dear old friend, and an enormous thank you to everyone who has visited this little blog and left such cheery comments recently because they really have got me through a rotten week.

No.25 has been a sad, old house this week. On Thursday we said a last goodbye to our furry girl and it was just horrible. The inevitable had been hanging in the air all last, week hence my miserable post and talk of worries and troubles and things. And I'm sorry not to have visited anyone really this week, I'll catch up soon.

Wednesday (yes honestly that was her name - but one chosen by the girl who gave her to me and bless my little moggie she answered to her daft name). Possibly the softest, gentlest, snuggliest cat in the world, she reached the ripe old age of fourteen (and maybe more) enjoying her days sunbathing in the garden, making nests on all my eiderdowns, perfecting the knack of appearing for a stroke the very second I finally got to have a sit down and managing to disrupt every gardening project I ever began.

This dear cat came into my life about 11 years ago when I bought my very first pad, a small ground floor flat in a quiet corner of south-east London, back in the days when I thought I'd have a bash at being a city girl. The owner of Wendsers (and the flat) was moving overseas and wondered if I would take her on. The timing couldn't have been better because I'd been planning to take in a cat as soon as I moved in.

London life didn't suit me at all and it was a really lonely time, but the little cat who trotted along the street to meet me from the train each night, then kept me company watching the telly, curling up on the side of the bath and snuggling at the foot of my bed, made it all bearable.

She came with me on every move after that; back to parents, into our first tiny cottage, from barn to townhouse and eventually to No 25 when she settled into a slower pace of life and was the perfect, perfect first pet for our boys. In all that time she never scratched or lashed out and I've never seen another cat sleep right next to the bird table and completely ignore them. Absolutely not interested.

But now she is gone and the hole she's left is enormous. I'm still catching myself checking on our cat food supplies, seeing if she's settled into her basket or leaving open the sitting room door because she'd got too weak to push it open. But she's at peace now and that makes me feel a bit more comfortable. I miss her terribly but wouldn't have wanted her to be in anymore pain.

So now, whenever I sit on my rickety garden bench and look down the garden, I will feel the gap where she should be but I'll always remember the warmth of her next to me, the constant purr and the comfort of the best cat I've ever known.