A Cat Called Merlot

I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Merlot. I’m a male tabby cat with an unenviable past. I’m now aged between six and eight in human years but when my story began, I’d been living on the street since the family I was born into, moved house and left me behind. I’m not sure what I did to deserve such shabby treatment. Then, after a particularly rough few weeks sleeping in a disused coal bunker, I was picked up, thin and battle-worn, put in a plastic box and taken to a Rescue Centre. I spent ten long months there, albeit safe but in a small pen. The sign on a chalk board outside, gave me an unpronounceable name and described me as “frustrated”. That was an under-statement!

People came to visit regularly and stared at me through the glass door as though appraising an exhibit at a freak show. Some ventured into my confined space and waved my knitted fish toy around in my face but in response, I just bit them. It was no more than they deserved. I wasn’t in any frame of mind to trust any human after being abandoned, so they all left without a second glance, invariably with a nice natured black and white.

Angry and resentful, I paced up and down day in, day out, dreaming of a nice home and a garden of my own. Each morning I woke up full of hope but by the time the Centre closed, I went to sleep disappointed, with all the other ‘Unwanteds’. Week after week, cats came and went but nobody would take me and I was too depressed to show myself in the best light.

Then, one day, in early October, almost seventeen cat years ago, just as the Centre was about to close for the evening, two women arrived.

Half asleep from my afternoon nap, I heard my name. Curiously, I got up, stretched and sat by the door. They peered back at me. One of them described me as ‘beautiful’ but that certainly wasn’t enough to prove her worth. She came in and sat down with me. There was something about her eyes that was different and she appeared gentle. Nonetheless, she had to be tested and so I bit her, hard. Unlike the others, she remained seated, telling me she understood how miserable I felt and that she was going to take me home with her and look after me. Unconvinced, I bit her harder. Her friend was smiling and nodding in approval from the other side of the door and, before I knew it, I was in a wire crate surrounded by all sorts of brand new cat paraphernalia, on the back seat of a car.

I panicked a bit and cried like a young queen for a while but after what seemed like a lifetime, I was liberated in a big, airy flat with a large, leafy garden. That was to be my new home.

So, that was where my new life as Merlot began and, two and a half years on, I’m very settled and as I’ve got a lot to say on many subjects, I’m ready to begin my weekly blog. I hope it will entertain you as we take a journey together, through my world….