Pippa–a queen of cats

Pippa in a basket that could have been purpose-made!

Pippa, our great survivor mother cat, is 84.

I always thought multiplying a cat’s age by seven gave you an approximation of their equivalent human age.

Not according to a flyer Meredith picked up at our local veterinary surgery.

Assume that a 1-year-old cat is equal to a 15-year-old human and a 2-year-old cat is equal to a 24-year-old human. Then add four years for every year after that.

She is 17 years old which works out to 84 if you follow the formula above.

Pippa has outlived her offspring by some time–[see posts to Marmalade and Butterscotch (Little mother).]

But she has been a worry lately.

Spending most of the summer outdoors–even the nights.

This is a cat that’s a homebody.

She sleeps on the bed.

She’s there when you’re feeling sick and stays–keeping vigil.

Pippa rules, has ruled–she’s a Queen of cats.

The table top is her throne room or at least the higher ground [window sill above] when other lesser cats are present.

Tolerant but not a push-over–she’ll show her disapproval and walk away.

(She has an aversion to singing–she’ll leave the room.)

The other morning she wasn’t to be found and Meredith started thinking the worst.

Cats, we have learned, start distancing themselves “when the time comes”.

We worry about knowing when the time has come.

Our friend Theresa, who has some experience of this (her cat Billy lived to a great age), helpfully suggested that if Pippa had an appetite for food, it was not yet the time.

Pippa still likes to eat, though she feels like a bag of bones when we stroke her.

Meredith has persuaded her that indoors is better now that autumn is here and the nights are cold and the mornings frosty.

She even bought some cat-warming comforters to relax an old body into sleep and Pippa has shown her appreciation by using them.

Thin she may be but it’s not over yet–the door’s still open.