This was the title of a massive hit for Tom Jones, the Welsh pop-singer who went on to become one of the elder statesmen of popular music through his collaborations with other artistes, such as Carlos Santana.
It seemed like an apt title for this piece about cats and other pets (mascotas) that have featured in my life of seven and a half decades.
Tom Jones, young and old [Photo image: Wikipedia]
Me, cats and other pets
When I was growing up in Devon we had dogs. I don't remember any cats. My dad kept chickens too when I was very young. And at one point I bought a couple of mice. I was going to breed mice, sell them and make a fortune! My pair of mice produced one liter of 10. That turned out to be a short-lived enterprise.
I remember a gorgeous, even-tempered boxer called Heidi; a toy poodle called Snowy and a mongrel with the name Chloe.
First felines
As a young childless married couple we moved to our second house in Thelwall, Cheshire. I was 30 and Jeryl was 27. We got a couple of kittens. They both disappeared. After that we started a family and were pet-free. Our two kids were enough of a challenge!
As Time Goes By
After Jeryl and I parted I moved to North Wales to live with my new girlfriend, a widow called Maude. She had a dog. I was early retired, but Maude was still working, so I spent a fair bit of time with her dog, whose name escapes me.
My second marriage, lived entirely in Spain, has had its fair share of animals. Over 15 years of marriage we have had two cats and a dog.
The first cat, Cleo, was "murdered" (poisoned) by a nasty cat-hating German woman in Montejaque, where we lived at that time.
Our lovely dog, a pointer called Berti, was run over and fatally injured by a speeding motorist in La Indiana.
We currently have a female cat which, as a kitten, had been dumped at the "basura" near our home. It followed me to our house and the rest is history.
Berti relaxing by our pool [Photo: PW]
Pauline (Paulinchen) is now nearly a year old. We took her to the vet, who de-loused her, got rid of her fleas, inserted a chip in her neck and, on a subsequent occasion when she was old enough, sterilised her.
Pauline is very much a domesticated cat. She has worked out the limits of our large garden; she is very aware of the traffic that passes by the front of our house.
Last week we acquired a second cat.
Three separate neighbours had seen it get hit by a car outside our house.
Three days later, on a Saturday morning, I found it injured hiding at the back of our garden. We took it into the house, fed and watered it and set up a "bed".
On Monday we took it (we still didn't know its gender, cos it wouldn't let us look).
"Turco" examined it, established that it was a girl, and that it had a dislocated hip. He thought it would right itself with rest and a course of antibiotics.
And then it ran off!
Yet, it comes every evening for the food we put out. Rita has photographed her a number of times.
This evening she was there again, along with several other cats from the neighbourhood, which have clearly realised there is food to be had.
We managed to feed and water her without the others. She gobbled up the wet food and the bowl of dry biscuits in double-quick time. But then she disappeared again.
© Paul Whitelock
Tags:
Berti, cats and other pets, Chloe, Cleo, Cocoa, elder statesman of popular music, Heidi, Jeryl, mascotas, Maude, Paulinchen, Pauline, Paul Whitelock, Rita, seven and a half decades, Snowy, Tom Jones, Turco, Welsh pop-singer, "What's new, pussycat?"