casper

pj phoned last night, he and gereth are on holiday in capetown. he was calling on his cell phone and the line was bad.
he had sad news for me ...my much loved cat casper had died.
he died on the couch in their tv lounge, probably in his sleep. blaise, a dear friend who lives in a cottage in the grounds, took his little cat body into the vet to be cremated, the vet said....probably a heart attack.

casper was special, black with a white chest and face and the cutest black mustache and beard. he was born on the verandah of nikki and ian's town house, mummy cat took up residence there and delivered herself of five very cute kittens. casper was the runt and to save him, nikki hand fed him. i fell in love with him the very first time i saw him, when the time came for him to leave his mommy and venture out into the wider world...

only one problem, my mann did not really care for cats. we already had one, nikki had kind of negotiated him into allowing her to have sammi.it has always been kind of difficult to say no to nikki! plus, we had two dogs, one bull mastiff, luke, and tessa, a bull terrier.

eventually casper came home...
and manfred, disliker of cats...met his soul mate. they became inseparable. casper could do no wrong and he was the first and only cat ever allowed to sleep on our bed!

casper grew into a real character, every night before bed we would take luke and tessa out to do a late evening patrol and leg lifting exercise. casper would hide in the deep shadows, wait for tess, the bullie to wander past, and then leap out,jump onto her and sink his claws into her buttocks.he always hid in a different place and she always nearly had a heart attack. luckily bull terriers seem to lack sensitivity when it comes to pain and it was the surprise factor that got to her!

when manfred died, casper was my comfort, it felt as if there was still a connection with him through that small black and white cat.
when the time came for me to move to the uk, pj and gereth were happy to adopt him...no way would we have allowed our casper to endure six months in quarantine.

i have been home once since i left south africa. casper was pleased to see me in his rather offhand cat manner! i was in seventh heaven and felt honoured when he came to sleep in my room. I was hoping to take a trip home sometime next year...time with my son, my family, my friends and my beloved casper.

goodbye my furry little friend, i'm glad you went easy with little pain and suffering. say hi to the mann for me, in time, i will see you both on the other side.