The Time is Meow

This will be my last cat, my friend Libby declared. Her magnificent fluffy grey striped Turkish Angora cat with it’s exotic Egyptian Pharaoh eyes lay on his side like a bored muse in a fainting chair and blinked at us, before slinking over and draping his arms around my grateful shoulders and letting me carry him like a sleepy well fed baby.

Around us, her enormous black Labrador puppy, emitting wet dog smells, had chewed off parts of the timber door frame, and was currently sitting outside creating a mess with some tree part, having recently been forgiven for watching her carefully plant rows of seedlings and shrubs, waiting paitiently, before he dug them all up. Her elderly Cavalier's snores vibrated up from the chair he slept under.

That’s madness I said, while patting the beautiful cat’s rump and rocking him from side to side. I’ve been calculating how many more cats I can possibly own in my lifetime, I told her, and it’s definitely not going to be enough.

I've currently got two Tonkinese fur babies. A rubber chicken in a fur leotard is probably the best way to describe our Bao Bao, with his scrawny neck and pot belly, looking more like a Quentin Blake drawing than an actual cat. He’s all ears and angles, slightly feral and very, very affectionate.

His brother Bingkoh (in white) is probably even more smoochy coochy coo. He has a sleek tubular body, bright blue eyes and an impish face like a monkey. His snowy fur means his ability to camouflage in the wild is limited exclusively to resting on Hampton style couches or fluffy hotel bath robes. He’s also weirdly fond of warm shallow baths.

The kittens are 8 months old now. Mid lockdown, on a rainy day, these kittens deliver everything I had hoped for. Cuddles, lap snoozing, endless nuzzling and being happily wrapped up in blankets and cradled like fleece burritos. That I had to get them in secret, behind Tom’s back, is beside the point. We are all completely obsessed.

Like all Generation Alphas, they're on the Gram, follow them at: @bingkoh_and_baobao