Getting catty

No, no, I’m not about to unsheathe my claws all over someone or something. No. It’s time for the annual trip to the National Cat Club 108th Championship Show.

This is something my friends and I have done for the last 4 years now. It’s the only time of the year I get to see one of them since she lives in Worthing (a mere 200+ miles away.) I speak to her quite regularly since she’s also a colleague and we used to work on the same project.

It was during that time that we discovered a shared worship of all things feline and she inducted me into the cat show thang. I in turn inducted my then SIL and the three of us have been meeting up at the show ever since.

In some ways this show is quite painful for a cat lover. It’s not the poor pampered pusses who are primped within an inch of their lives for this day, or even that the display cages are rather too small for some of the bigger breeds of cat, no. It’s the fact that they don’t know that you’re not allowed to touch them (hygiene reasons dontcha know.) So there you are, ooohing and aaaahing and wanting desperately to cuddle but holding yourself back, and then they look at you, mew pitifully and stick a paw out through the bars of the cage. I tell you it takes much willpower to resist those pleas.

This show is also directly responsible for me owning a pedigree puss of my own. My fuzzy little darling Azrael, is a Norwegian Forest Cat. A breed I had never even heard of until my first cat show. When I saw them for the first time I was sold, I had to have one. Unfortunately for me I wanted a male and a specific colour so it was over 3 years before I got one. But now I have. He’s mine I tell you. All Mine! Well actually I’m his, but then that’s what being owned by cats is all about =)