Approaching Bwlch

(I just wanted to get the name Bwlch into a blip, because it's such a Welsh name, and who knows when I'll be back there?)

We left Stroud just after 8am, under clear skies, heading to Wales to view a special cat in need of a new home. By 10.15 we were at Llangorse, a town near a beautiful lake, at the house of the breeder.

To be honest, when I saw the cat on the stairs I thought she was a kitten. She is small, weighing in at 2kg. She was skittish at first, but took to sniffing my handbag and then jumping on our laps. We had tea, asked about a million questions, and admitted that we knew nothing about pedigree cats. We wanted to come across as really nice prospective human cat-parents, because there was a queue of six others interested, apparently. And there's a Bombay-cat shaped hole in our lives since we lost our Bomble nearly five months ago.

However, it did seem obvious that we'd passed the exam even before we'd got there, and scored extra points for working in special education, which of course has nothing to do with cats!

We persuaded the cat, Indie, into a carrier, strapped her into the seatbelt, and drove straight home with her beside me. She was fairly vocal most of the time. Burmese cats are chatty. To give you the low-down, Bombays are pure black (self-coloured) Burmese cats that were created in the UK by breeding Burmese cats with British shorthairs. They are now accepted as part of the Burmese breed. Our new cat, Indie, has a ridiculous 'kennel name' because she has a pedigree. It's not quite Alyssia Starlight Haze, but something similar. (We are not pedigree snob-people, and we didn't pay hundreds for her, we just wanted a neutered female Bombay that needed rehoming, and she fitted the bill. Like Bomble, she wanted a new home because she's a Alpha/ dominant cat, not at all happy around others).

Indie shot behind the big sofa when we got home, and stayed there for Quite Some Time. I wondered how many weeks we'd have to sit side by side on the sofa, keeping as still and silent as possible....however, she's now been upstairs, under cupboards, and above all on our laps. She can also purr for England AND Wales. I think it'll take time for her to get used to exploring the whole house, let alone meeting visitors or going outside, but we all have time.

No pictures of her yet because she's black and it's dark, and every time she moves, she moves fast. What more can I say? She's tiny, her coat is shiny, and I can't move my arm because her little her face is resting on it.