Socks, who was not quite two years-old when he died, and his sister Mittens came to live with us in September 2023. They were both manic - "They don't sleep!" we were told by the rescue place from which they came. Since then, Mittens has mellowed but Socks dug into the wild-eyed madness.
There was the time he leapt from the top of the stairs at the main light in our hallway, sending all the bits of the chandelier-effect lampshade everywhere in an almighty crash. There was his habit of biting my feet if I ever stopped moving about. On the morning of New Year's Eve, when we were all a little fragile, he brought the Dr a live pigeon and let it go in our bedroom...
The number of daft things he did. The speed at which he burned through his nine lives.
Then there's all the comfortable, companionable stuff. He liked to curl up in a cardboard box beside me as I worked. He slept each night on the Dr's feet. He had a selection of sunny spots in the garden to laze about in.
I miss the patter of his feet at a little before 5 pm each evening, in the never-dimming hope that his dinner might just once be early. We all miss him just being around. What a character. What a keenly felt loss.
