Zenith
1989 - 1992
It was all by chance that Zenith came to live with me. I went with a friend to a small party and didn’t really know anyone else there. As soon as I arrived I discovered that the host owned a young cat which had recently had kittens. The kittens were happy and friendly, keen to see what was going on. Having sat in an armchair near the cat bed I was captivated by them. Then something wonderful happened; all of the kittens climbed up on me, piled up and went to sleep. Mum cat didn’t seem to mind, maybe she was glad of the break. I can’t really remember much else about the party.
We stayed the night and next morning before leaving I got talking to the owner about the kittens and she was keen to start rehoming them. They were old enough to leave their mother but she hadn’t found enough people to take them. By that point I was absolutely thrilled to have one. We agreed that I would come back the following weekend to collect one of them.
So I got the house ready, bought cat supplies and the next weekend I went to collect Zenith. Driving home I still couldn’t believe she was coming home to stay with me.
Whenever it rained in the night Zenith would go hunting… for worms! If I heard her playing in the night I’d have to get up and rescue them from being left on the carpet. Fortunately she didn’t harm them. When I took them back outside, popping them on the lawn where I hoped they would easily disappear into the grass, Zenith would charge around looking for them.
One time Zenith graduated from worms. Lindsay and I were watching television and she suddenly said, “There’s a mouse on the television!” I was confused as there weren’t any mice on the show and as I was watching, why would she tell me? I replied, “What? There isn’t.” To which Lindsay exclaimed, “No, there is a mouse on the television!” I’m sure I dismissively said, “Yeah, yeah”, thinking Lindsay was messing about, but sure enough, there was in fact a little mouse on top of the set. Luckily for me it made it’s escape by running up the curtain - it obviously liked heights. So I easily caught it my sliding a bin up the curtain and in it dropped. The funny thing is that Zenith wasn’t around, she’d obviously lost it in the house and given up chasing it.
