Many thanks..

Time to get the barmy cat-woman bit out of the way and say thanks to everyone for their messages following the sad loss of my lovely, funny, deliciously mad Bazil. I know he was 'only a cat' but he wasn't really, he was my cat and I absolutely adored him.

We found him dead on the verge on our hill on Sunday morning and what upsets me more than anything is that it had to be one of our neighbours who was responsible but they neither owned up nor had the decency to tell us but just left him there for us to find. We live in the middle of nowhere, up a 2 mile long lane which leads up to our hamlet of 7 houses, only 5 permanently occupied, and nowhere else. There is so little traffic that it seems almost impossible that he could have been run over but it seemed like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and was caught on a very narrow piece of the verge which has a sheer drop of about 20 feet down onto the chemin rural below so there was nowhere for him to escape to.

I have my suspicions about who was responsible - either 'the ones who drive too fast' who I know went out on Sunday morning and 'the one who lets his 13 year old daughter drive the car down the hill' and she was staying with him that weekend. Still, there's nothing to be done. I can't turn back time and angsting about who was responsible doesn't do any good.

The CH was truly fabulous - this is a man who feels faint if the dog is sick so having to deal with the end result of a car/cat accident wasn't easy, especially as he was also very fond of Mad Baz. He broke the news to the children, who were absolutely distraught, and insisted that we bury Baz in the garden even though digging a hole big enough for a plant is difficult enough on our terrain. He made him a lovely coffin, brushed his fur so he looked nice for the children to have a last stroke, and laid him to rest on a red silk cushion. He talked me out of my idea for a full Viking burial on our pond saying that the end result, possibly, of a half cremated kitty wouldn't be good for any of us. The children made little notes for Baz, gave him some of his favourite cat biscuits so he didn't get hungry on his journey, put in a toy and even a bit of gold and DS and his friend made a little wooden cross.

The next day the CH and DS edged the grave in stones and covered it with pebbles and now he even has a little cherub. All we need now is fairy lights and we'll have a full blown shrine! Still, no less than he deserved.

We've just had the ceilings replastered in the lounge and Baz would have loved it. He'd have been up and down the scaffolding, paws in the plaster, stealing the sponges and things. The job would have taken twice as long. Then he'd have conked out in one of his favourite places, either in the gutter under an overhang where he snoozed away most of last summer or spreadeagled across the printer with his head hanging over the edge.

I've never known a cat quite like him. He had us in fits of laughter almost every day with his silly antics, running up trees at full speed them more often then not, falling out of them, rounding up the chickens, ambushing us from among the undergrowth in the garden and always there to meet us when we came home.

Calinou, his little playmate, has been wandering around miaowing pitifully ever since, looking for his friend in all their favourite spots.

A friend sent a poem which goes:

If tears could build a stairway,

And memories a lane,

I'd walk right up to Heaven,

And bring you home again.

And I bloody would too, I loved that daft, cross eyed cat.

Batty cat-women moment is now over and normal service will be resumed shortly.