Wilma (my 22 year old cat) is looking a bit under the weather today. Her breathing seems a bit laboured and she is off her food which is never a good sign. This concerns me more than it would if she were a mere youngster, perhaps not enough to look for an emergency vet service but I shall take her in tomorrow morning. She HATES going in her cat basket and likes travelling in a car even less. The challenge is to find a taxi that will agree to take us as I still can't drive a car because of my recent surgery.

Someone said to me once "If anything happened to Wilma, would you get another cat"?  I thought to myself, what a strange question. It makes a cat sound rather like a possession, a bit like replacing a lost piece of jewllery. Wilma happened upon my life when she was just 8 weeks old, for whatever reason I don't know. What I do know is that she's shared my space for a very large part of my life and that if anything does happen to her it will be like losing a dear old friend. No-one has ever asked me "If anything happened to one of your friends, would you get another friend"?