May the Fourth be with Mew

May the Fourth has nothing to do with Star Wars in our house.

May the Fourth is however a Very Important Day.

May the Fourth is the day when all both our cats officially add 1 to their ages (in normal, standard 365.25(ish) days/one-orbit-of-the-sun years; I don’t go in for the cat years thing).

Why today? Well, my very first two cats really were born on May 4th, the people I got them from were very keen to tell me when their birthday was, in fact they were most insistent that my Mum wrote it down. They were less particular about other things, so my wee kittehs had fleas. And worms. And (as we discovered some months later) feline leukaemia. But hey, at least we knew when their birthday was!

I probably wouldn’t have still been observing this date, but for the fact that we used to have pet insurance. The insurers always asked for a date of birth whenever I added a new cat to the policy. Frankly this was just being daft – I didn’t even know the year of birth for two of the cats I insured with them, never mind the actual date. But they insisted on a date, so I gave one: May 4th. It turns out that all cats are born on May the fourth, at least they are in this house.

Anyhoo, back to today. Ginger Cat is still a mere youngster, having just 9 years on the clock. Black Cat however is a rather mature 17. Old bugger. Given his age, we offered him driving lessons, but he settled for a dish of food and a cuddle.

Sadly, Black Cat really is old, but I’m delighted he’s still enjoying life – I didn’t think he’d make it this far. He’s been taking an assortment of pills for an assortment of life-threatening ailments for the last three years. He may be in his twilight months now, but he still charges around at great speed and lives life to the full, he just sleeps a lot more in between his moments of madness.

I’ve been holding this post back for a few days now, hoping to get a picture of the birthday cat, but he’s not keen on cameras, so you may have to wait for the obligatory cute cat photo.