It's just a name

Today

Such a lovely evening last Thursday, getting acquainted with my new great-niece. She's still very little but is as pretty as pretty. She was pretty contented, too, sleeping for a while in my arms. And when she became fretful, I sang "Edelweiss" (on the instructions of her parents) and she quickly calmed down again.

I'd made her a little beanie hat out of pussy cat printed fleece and it fitted a treat and kept her little head warm when we went out into the garden.

Her name is very pretty, too - Amelia. "I used to have a cat called Amelia" I said to my nephew. "Oh, I remember", he said.

In My Day

I can't now remember the reason why I became fixated, back in 1974, on having a kitten. We were still living at the flat in Belmont in Brighton which was up three flights of stairs and we weren't supposed to have pets at all.

We trekked round all the pet shops in Brighton - not a kitten in sight. Finally, with reluctance, I went into a dirty little pet shop near the station. This had a bad reputation for leaving animals in the window all day, etc, and I didn't really want to do business with them. However, they did have a kitten. A little, scrappy, 6-week old black & white female. I looked at her little terrified face. "How much?" I asked. "£0.75p", was the reply. "I'll take her, plus food, litter, flea spray and worming tablets" (I could see at a glance that she needed all these things).

I tucked the trembling creature into my coat and we went home. We had to get her up the stairs without being detected. This was made harder by two-year old Lizzie's excitement at our having made the purchase. She delightedly and loudly talked about the cat all the way up the stairs, oblivious to our entreaties to hush!

The kitten was very scared and spent the first two days hiding, mainly, it must be stated, from the exuberant Lizzie. It took a long time to house-train her and even longer finally to get rid of the fleas and worms that were making her so miserable.

She lived for 19 years and during that time had a litter of four kittens herself. She made sure that one of us was in attendance during the delivery (rather uncomfortably as she'd chosen the understairs cupboard). She was always a little scraggy but was was unfailingly affectionate. She died gracefully a few weeks after her lifelong companion Agamemnon died, just before her 19th birthday.

We named her Amelia, and though she was never as pretty as pretty, we hope that something of her affectionate and gentle nature will be reflected in her human namesake.