So you think you’re not a cat person?

So did I.

And yet here we are. Against all odds, I have become a Mad Cat Lady. Here’s how it happened.

As a child, I thought cats were pretty much the epitome of evil. I didn’t come from a family of cat lovers (my dad liked dogs, and my mum wasn’t an animal person at all). If I had to walk past a cat sitting on a wall, I’d give it a wide berth, lest it pounced on me or tried to steal my soul. I could see, of course, that kittens were cute, and some cats in pictures looked fluffy and cuddly, but I didn’t trust the feline species at all. They looked shifty and malevolent, and their claws gave me the horrors.

Fast-forward a few years and I’m at university. On a day trip with my parents, my boyfriend of the time stops in a car park in Derbyshire to stroke a cat. I feel actively irritated. It seems old-lady-like and twee. Besides, can’t he see it’s the devil’s own fleabag?

Fast-forward a year or two and I’m at journalism college, and my friend is trying to tell me what wonderful creatures cats are. I’m not having any of it.

Fast-forward again. It’s 2009. My boyfriend of two years (now my husband), Eddy, and I are on holiday in the Lake District to celebrate my birthday. After a week in a pretty cottage, we spontaneously book an extra night in a B&B. We spend the evening in the local pub, then set off to walk back to the B&B. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a ginger cat appears in front of us. It looks at us, walks a few steps, then stops and looks back, waiting for us. How cute, we say (but I’m still not sure). This carries on all the way back to the B&B. After seeing this cat walk with us for 10 minutes and realising it has no intention of ambushing us or ripping my face off, I start to think it’s pretty cool. When we get to the car park of the B&B, I tentatively bend down to stroke it. And before my hand even makes contact, it looks up at me and starts to purr like a tractor. And that’s it. I’m done. My heart is stolen. Boom.

From that point on, Eddy and I start to talk about getting a cat. At the time, we live in a rented flat in Wimbledon and it’s not feasible, but we decide that as soon as we buy our own place, it’s a done deal. Yet, even as we talk about it, and as much as I’m invested in the idea, I find myself wondering how I’ll ACTUALLY cope with a cat, claws and all.

Flat bought, we head to Battersea Dogs & Cats home to look at the cats needing adoption. We see a small black and white one called Boots and ask to meet him. The Battersea lady takes us into a small room and we sit on a sofa while she fetches Boots. I’m nervous. What if he hisses at me or tries to bite me? Boots enters the room, jumps up on the sofa and… snuggles into my arm. Again, I’m done. Heart lost, decision made. We rename him Mr Boots (a little respect for an older gent) and take him home.

I’d never really understood how people could say their pets were like family, but from the moment Mr Boots stepped out of his carrier and made himself at home on our living-room rug, we knew: he was our boy. Of course, it took a while for us all to get used to each other. I remember the first time I dared to pick him up (still wary of the claws). I also remember the first time he dared to sit on my lap (wary of me). My husband remembers the first time Bootsy (as he soon became known) snuggled up to him on the bed and gradually, tentatively, scooted up to nestle right under his chin. We hadn’t known it when we chose him, but as cat newbies, we’d really lucked out with Bootsy. He was a total beginner’s cat: sweet, cuddly, calm and placid, a real gentleman. Even my mum came to love him (and that’s saying something).

When he became incurably ill, four years after we adopted him, we were inconsolable. When our lovely vet (who had tried everything to save him) told us that if he didn’t improve over the weekend we would have to say goodbye, we sat up with him all night, willing him to rally and crying as we watched him collapse on the short journey from his bed to the litter tray, which we had moved next to his basket. When the inevitable happened and we had to put him to sleep, we both wept, as did the vet. I remember watching her inject him and asking, “Is he gone?”

What I’d learned from our time with Bootsy was that family means what you want it to mean. My husband and I don’t want children, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have lots of love to give or don’t want to care for another life. Bootsy would often sit with me while I read, or we’d nap cuddled up together. If I was upset or ill, he would sit at my feet and look at me with big eyes, or snuggle up close (I used to joke that either he cared or he sensed weakness and was waiting to eat me, but it doesn’t really matter which was the truth: the perception that he knew I was sad and wanted to stay with me was a huge comfort).

After Bootsy died, we both said we would wait a few months before we got another cat. Best laid plans and all that. Instead, I found that there was a cat-shaped hole in my life that I needed to fill. So off we went again to Battersea. This time, I’d seen a cat on their website and fallen in love with him because he looked really, really sad. I remember saying to Eddy that we could turn his frown upside down. Hahahaha! What suckers. Our next adventure in cat adoption was to be very, very different.

The wonderful Battersea staff warned us that Fraser was a “very naughty boy” and “nothing like Mr Boots”, and there was talk of growling and biting.

“Hmm,” thought I. But we persevered and went to Battersea to meet him. And guess what? He let me stroke him, no problem. My husband crouched down and he leapt straight into his lap and snuggled in. There was no growling, no hissing. We were both amazed. “He loves us!” we told ourselves. “He must be over his naughty behaviour because he feels comfortable with us!” So off we went with this big ginger fluffball. It turned out that Fraser (we never liked the name but nothing else we tried ever stuck, so he’s Fraser to this day) knew exactly how to play us. We’d been had!

We get home with this impossibly cute cat (all ginger fluff and big, Puss In Boots eyes)… and the growling, hissing and biting commences immediately. Not to mention the crazy bouncing around the room fighting with everything (including his own reflection in our black gloss cabinet). For the first two weeks or so, I’m devastated. I’m frightened of him. It brings back all my fear of teeth and claws. I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. When I have to take a day off sick, I stay in my bedroom with the door closed. I cry off from a night out with my friends because I’m so depressed about this HORRIBLE FIEND in my house.

And then, imperceptibly, it started to change. So imperceptibly, in fact, that the first time I actually remember noticing it is 18 months after we adopted him. That can’t be the first time, of course, and there are photos of us being snuggly before that, but it was a real watershed moment that has stuck in my mind. We were both ill. He’d been to the vet because we saw he was suffering (it turned out to be an obstruction – no doubt from eating bones from our neighbours’ bins) and I was vomiting and limping inexplicably (it turned out that I had a spider bite on my foot). We were both awake and feeling poorly on the sofa and he cuddled up to me as if I was his mama, and let me stroke his face for the first time. I think that was the first time we had that intimate rapport. Maybe it had taken him that long to feel safe with me, but after that he never stopped.

Four-and-a-bit years after we adopted him, he’s still a slightly loose cannon, but our relationship arc with Fraser absolutely amazes me. Today, we are OBSESSED with him. I love him to bits. And he’s blossomed into the most loving, needy, snuggly cat. Whatever we’re doing, you’ll find him wanting to be with us. Whenever I’m lying on my back, which I do pretty much all the time to read my books, he loves to sit on my chest, put his face right under mine, fix me with the love eyes and purr. He’ll sit on Eddy’s lap or on the back of his chair while Eddy plays PlayStation; lie on the arm of the sofa while we watch a film; squeeze between the two of us when we go to sleep. He’s proved himself to be slightly troubled, yes (and who knows what his life was before us?), but ultimately this huge, adorable, affection-seeking personality that we would be lost without. Whenever he comes into the room, bowling in shoulders-first like a football hooligan or a Mitchell brother, he gives us a ridiculous, high-pitched girlie miaow that makes us laugh every single time. He’s the most hilarious cat, and I often think how glad I am that I didn’t take him back in the early days. I adore this cat, and I cannot imagine my life without him. And, more importantly than that, he’s clearly loving life with us, and we love seeing him happy, safe and living his best life.

So, that’s my unlikely tale of how I became a cat person. And my unlikely tale of how I stayed one. And when anyone calls me a mad cat lady, I don’t even mind.

And you never know, it might just happen to you.

A year without my dad

On this evening last year, I was messing around on Facebook and posting a photograph of myself, aged five, looking grumpy at a children’s party. I made some gag about how I’d been no more fond of socialising with strangers as a child than I am as an adult. And then I went to bed. I had no idea that when I woke up, everything would have changed.

Tomorrow will mark a year since my dad passed away. And the reason I’m writing this, other than to pay tribute to him, is because nothing in those 12 months has been how I thought it would be. If you’d asked me this time last year how I thought I would react to losing the man who, for 41 years, had been my hero, my rock, my mentor and my protector, I would have imagined a heavy, hopeless and debilitating grief and months of relentless tears. I would have told you that I would struggle to function, to cope with life after the loss. And if my reaction to losing my dad could be matched to how much I loved him, then that would indeed be the case. But I wasn’t counting on the mysteries of the human brain and the strange, otherworldly way that my emotions, threatened with devastation, would curl up into a ball and play dead to defend themselves – me – from the truth.

That morning last June when I was woken by the call from my mum, my reaction was the one you’d expect from anyone who loved their dad the way I did. I howled like a wounded animal, I was physically sick, and I cried for the entire four-hour journey to my parents’ home. I remember that the tears almost didn’t seem to be part of me – they flowed and flowed beyond my control as I sat on the train holding my husband’s hand, and again when I saw my mum, and for the rest of that day.

They flowed when we visited my dad in the chapel of rest and when, referencing something he’d said to me just a few weeks earlier, I promised I’d never forget him. They flowed on the morning of the funeral when I stepped outside the house and saw the hearse with the coffin inside – I remember it made me feel as if I couldn’t breathe. They flowed as we followed behind in another car; when we paused outside my parents’ little village church while their friend rang the bells and his wife, who had been in the same profession as my dad, stood at the gate giving a salute; and as I stood at the lectern reading the eulogy I’d written, struggling to speak at the beginning and at the end, pulling it together in the middle and determined to do him proud.

But in the days between, and in the days that followed, a strange and, to me, unsettling cognitive dissonance set in. My brain knew that my dad was gone, but my heart and my emotions couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept it. And that’s how things have remained – which disturbed me at the beginning and continues to do so. I know that there’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and that everyone does it differently, but I also know that the way I’m reacting isn’t the way I’d react if I could really understand, emotionally, that I will never see my dad again. But I can’t, because it’s simply too big, too final, for me to imagine – and if I can’t imagine it, how can it feel real?

Me and my lovely dad. Photo by Claire Parkinson at Navy Frame

We lost my dad gradually, over a period of years, and I suspect that played a part in the way my brain dealt with the loss. I think I started grieving long before he died, and was then faced with a Catch 22 when he did die: when you’ve watched someone you love suffer for a long time, how can you wish them back to suffer some more? I’m certain that the deepest, truest part of my grief is yet to surface; that it’s trapped somewhere, in parts of my brain and heart that have gone into emergency shut-down, and that it is struggling, quietly beneath the surface, to break free – and that, once it does, I won’t ever be the same. And as dramatic and frightening as that sounds, I will welcome it – because until it happens, I won’t feel that I have given my dad the goodbye that he deserves.

That’s not to say that I don’t cry, or I don’t miss him, or I’m not bereft without him or angry that he’s not here. I cried this morning, when a busker I passed in the tube station played a few bars of one tune on his violin, then stopped and started playing one of my dad’s favourite classical pieces. I’ve recently started reading history books – something my dad did all the time – and I catch myself thinking I’ll ask him what he thinks about something I’ve learned, only to get that bone-chilling realisation that I can’t, not now and not ever. I also have those 4am cold sweats, realising that he’s really, really gone. But whenever my mind grasps that fact, it can’t seem to hold onto it. It’s there and then it’s gone, like a sudden thunderstorm – not a monsoon season that gives you a chance to get used to it.

In the evenings, my husband and I regularly light a candle for my dad – I refer to it as ‘saying hello to him’. If we have to blow it out to go to bed, I’ll say goodnight to him too. If I’m struggling with anything in life, I often find myself asking, out loud, for my dad to help me. A week before he died, in our last conversation, he told me that I would feel his hand on my head, guiding me through life. And I’ve chosen to believe that, somehow, I will. That wilful part of my brain that won’t let me accept he’s gone is also allowing me to believe that even if he isn’t at the end of the phone, he’s watching over us from somewhere in the stars.

Recently I wrote about my dad in the glossy magazine I work for, and anyone who is likely to read this blog has already had the opportunity to read that piece if they wanted to, via my Facebook. But I don’t want to end this post without a tribute to my lovely dad. He was brave, honourable, decent, witty, clever, wise, kind, fair, hard-working, honest, fun and protective – the best dad I could have asked for. My mum and I adored him and it breaks my heart that after working hard all his life, he’s not here to enjoy his retirement. That he and my mum aren’t on a cruise right now, or sitting in their garden enjoying the flowers he loved, or visiting me and my husband so they can do day trips around Kent.

I think about him every single day. I imagine him watching over me, and I hope I’m making him proud. As Father’s Day approaches, I’ll be lighting a candle, thinking how lucky I was to have him, and raising a toast to the very, very best.

I love you, Dad. Sleep well. x

5 myths about women who don’t want children

1. We are cold and horrible, and lacking some essential part of being a woman

Actually, that’s not necessarily a myth. I’m happy to admit to all three of these accusations. I don’t think they’re true for me (well, not all of them, ho ho), but I also know that they’re 100% subjective. So, you can call me cold and horrible and lacking anything you like, but the part of this I object to is the strange and blinkered idea that none of these things could ever possibly be true for mothers. As I said in a previous post, in my childhood I witnessed plenty of mothers who were cold, indifferent or downright cruel to their own children, and icy to the point of rudeness to their kids’ friends. And as for lacking a vital element of womanhood… well, apart from the fact that the very definition of womanhood has never been so open, so contested and so up for grabs, I really can’t accept it. Because who makes these decisions? Who is the arbiter of womanhood? We all know it changes from decade to decade, and whilst I’m always more than happy to accept that most women do want children, and therefore I’m not a stereotypical or even ‘normal’ one, it seems incredible to me that in 2019 we can still define women as standing or falling by whether or not they want to push a pram. Do we judge men by whether or not they’re the breadwinner? Play football? Are physically strong? I don’t think so – not any more. We’ve all moved on from whatever standard of manhood there used to be, so why can’t we do the same for women? And you know what, I’m pretty sure it would be a huge relief to the mothers, too, because it’s high time we stopped judging women – all women – by some weirdo spirit level from the 1950s.

2. We have tragic lives

By definition, I don’t know many women my age or older who haven’t, by choice, had children. We are, after all, a minority. But I can tell you that of the handful I know, they ALL have huge, brilliant, successful and happy lives. One of them is the warmest, loveliest, most positive and most popular person I know. One of them has a social life that would exhaust an 18-year-old, is always jetting off on holiday and is total catnip to younger men. One left a dreadful marriage and got super fit and confident. Oh, and one is me. I’m sort of the exception to the rule because I’m not hugely social and I don’t throw myself off cliffs for fun. Personally, I’m never happier than when I’m sitting in my pyjamas watching horror films with my husband and picking Pringles crumbs out of my cleavage… but that’s the life that makes me as happy as a clam. And isn’t that the point?

3. We hate kids

My standard reply to this one is “Of course I don’t hate kids! No… I hate PEOPLE.” Boom, boom. And, as far as that goes, it’s true. I don’t hate children, I just see them as mini adults. I’m not saying everyone should think of it this way, but I do: every workplace bully, every weapons-grade arsehole, every person who has ever made your life a misery? They were all someone’s baby. And they’re likely to be someone’s parent. It kind of takes the magic out of it all for me, to be honest. I was bullied at school from the age of around 11. I know how cruel kids can be at that age. I don’t look at childhood as an innocent thing. Having said that, I can’t stand to see children with parents who don’t seem to treat them with gentleness and love. If I see a kid on the bus whose mother is too busy on her phone to pay them attention, or a child being shouted at for simply wanting to talk to their dad, I bristle. I had wonderful parents and a childhood that, now, when I look back on it, seems perpetually bright and sunny (until the bullying, of course). So I know the value of loving parents and feeling safe, valued and adored. It breaks my heart when I see kids who I don’t think are getting that. I am a sucker for charity adverts that deal with children. I’ve cried at ads I’ve seen on Facebook and I make regular donations to the charity for blind-deaf children. So when anyone tells me I hate children, or as a colleague once said, “You hate women having babies!” I’m taken aback. I don’t hate women having babies any more than I hate women wearing skinny jeans. It’s not for me, it doesn’t suit everyone, it doesn’t even suit all the people who do it, but I don’t hate it per se. And when it comes to my friends, I’m always overjoyed for them when they have babies. Always. I’m not super interested in their kids (we’re being honest here, yes?), but I am very happy that they’ve got the little person they wanted. I have cried with happiness for friends who’ve told me they’re pregnant. And I will buy that baby the cutest damn outfit I can find (ideally a character from Star Wars, and with some teeny tiny adorable socks).

4. We will be lonely when we’re old

Ah, again, I can’t really disprove this one. To be fair, I might well be lonely when I’m old. But do you think every old person who dies alone in a care home didn’t have kids? I rest my case. It’s a horrible thing to think about and it does give me some 4am-wide-awake-horrors. But what to do? Shove out some children I don’t want just to make sure there’s someone to wipe my bum? Really? Now, that WOULD be selfish. Plus, who’s to say they’d even be there when I needed them? In truth, I do worry about this. Chances are, my husband will die before me because men do tend to (although he will tell you that, with my diet, I’m having a laugh and he will outlive me by 30 years). But does anyone really know what the future holds? I never, ever see my future as being me and 8 grandkids sitting around a dinner table. I see it as me, reading a book, with a glass of sherry. I don’t even like sherry, but I’m guessing I will by the time I’m 80. The point is, it doesn’t matter what loneliness anyone thinks might befall me, I don’t think that’s a reason to have children I don’t want. And if I did have children for that reason, I’d be a horrid, selfish person. See the irony?

5. We are jealous of women with kids

Ah, no. No we’re not. If we wanted what you have, we would have ditched contraception and had it. That ain’t the issue. I can’t speak for every woman without kids, but I can say that, for me, there is a moment of ‘WHAT DO I DO?’ about it when anyone announces their pregnancy. For me, it is very, very simple. I don’t want what they have, but I haven’t worked out what I DO want. So to see a pregnant woman is to see a woman who’s had her big dream come true. And I’m here like, “Do I want salt and vinegar or bacon?” I don’t personally have a dream that I can make true by having sex. So what next? Let’s see…

So I don’t want kids. Don’t call me selfish.

Oh, this accusation/ misunderstanding is an absolute classic. It’s the one that makes my blood boil – more with frustration than anger, to be honest. I’m fully aware that most women DO want to have children, to be mothers, to parent. And since I know that, there’s no point in being upset by the people who say women who don’t have that urge aren’t normal. As far as there is a normal (there isn’t, but we can’t deny there is a NORM), they’re absolutely right. So, fine. I’m not normal and I’m not offended. But I will create merry actual hell with anyone who brings out the ‘selfish’ nonsense.

Where to start in my litany of debunkings? First off, let’s talk about why women want to have babies in the first place. Is it because they just WANT TO CARE FOR A CHILD? Well, no. Because I’m sure social services could point them in the direction of hundreds of unwanted children who really need some love, if that’s all the call to motherhood was. So that’s my first beef. Wanting to be a mother is not an unselfish, altruistic thing. Women want babies because THEY WANT BABIES. The same way I want a cat, or to spend my weekends reading, or to eat all the cheese. It’s an urge, a want, a desire that fulfils something inside them. And, of course, it’s a vital urge, and if everyone was like me then the species would die (yes, yes, I’m sure it would be apocalyptic. More on that later). But we all know what a broody woman is like. It’s a personal need, not a crusade to make the world a better place. And yes, you could say that having children makes the world a better place, but do you honestly think that’s what people are thinking when they’re obsessing about their own baby? I don’t. Not one bit. They want The Dream. They want the perfect family. I understand that, because we all have The Dream. Even if The Dream doesn’t involve kids, we all have a life that we aspire to. Mine? It always involved being married to a handsome man and drinking Champagne on a balcony. (I am married to a handsome man… we don’t have a balcony but we do occasionally drink Champagne.) So we’re all looking to follow The Dream in our own minds, and for most women, that does involve a baby; being able to write ‘My little family’ on Instagram pictures. Etc etc etc. We see it all the time. That’s not to say, of course, that parents don’t have to BECOME selfless. That, I see. I only have to look at my own parents and the sacrifices they made to bring me up. But I do think that’s beside the point. Yes, if you have children you have to spend time and money on them. But that’s not why you did it in the first place, is it? To show how much time and money you’d lost? I have a cat. And the fact that I have to spend time and money feeding and looking after him doesn’t make me a less selfish person than someone who doesn’t want a cat. It just makes me a person who really, really wanted a cat.

Ok. The next thing that bothers me about the selfish thing. What if I don’t want kids, but I dedicate my life to curing childhood cancer? Who decides at what point I’m no longer selfish but a worthy human being? What if I don’t want to look after children but I spend my spare time volunteering in a hospice? I could come up with a billion examples but the point is the same: there is more than one way to be selfless and to give to others, and assuming that people who aren’t parents aren’t giving anything back in any way is ignorant.

And let’s talk about the big taboo. Some people who have kids really do not look after them. They neglect, abuse or murder them. Or, on a lesser scale, that won’t put them in jail or make the local news, they just aren’t interested in or present for their own offspring. I saw plenty of this in my own childhood because I would be genuinely shocked by how horrid or cold some parents of my friends were, to their own kids and to us, their friends. All of which just proves to me: having a birth canal and experiencing a child come through it (or having a penis and its powers) does not, by itself, make you a kind person, or a good parent. To put it crudely, whilst I do believe in that trite line that you see on greetings cards, that ‘mothers have halos’, I also believe that it only applies to GOOD mothers, and that vaginas don’t come with halos installed.

One more thought: you would think, given the way society portrays motherhood, that the very act of it gives a purity to you and your child. Let’s think about that. How does that pan out if your child turns out to be Hitler? Or a rapist? A terrorist who mows down innocent people? Was it still the purest thing you ever did? I’d imagine it would be the most painful regret.

So, I think there is no right or wrong way to go about life. I have a lot more to say about this, but this is where I’m starting because this is the thing that got me fired up the most. And for those of us who don’t have kids, it’s a very good place to start redressing the balance. Tell me what you think.