Calla. 1997 - 10 November 2013.

Today we buried our cat Calla who has been with us for almost 15 years.

Although she had a pretty tough start (a story we told many years ago when the web was young) and had a few scrapes with other animals along the way she's had a pretty good life.

She was a very affectionate cat.
She always greeted us in the front yard when we came home. We thought that this was because she could recognise the sound of our cars but when she became completely deaf in the last couple of years we realised that she was just patiently waiting for us. Some of our neighbours referred to her as "the letter box cat" because she they saw her there so often.
In the evening, she would leap into my lap the second I sat down - especially in winter! On occasion, she would wait by the door into the lounge - staring at me, willing me to come and barely waiting for me to be seated before pouncing on me.
Her night time spot of preference in the last couple of years has been Zak's bed. She chose him to keep her company and keep her warm, a role he took on happily despite waking up cramped in the corner on many occasions to accommodate her chosen spot.

She provided us with a fair number of late night games of "chase the mouse (or occasionally rat) around the house" over the years and despite having lost a lot of weight over the last couple of years, she was active and agile as recently as last week. Leaping from the ground to the top of the barbecue, to the fence, to the roof so she could sit in the first place that the sun reaches our house each morning.

Something happened during the week and she completely stopped eating. Despite a couple of trips to the Vet they were unable to tell what was wrong and she died last night, in her basket in the dining room.

Cathy, Zak, Emma and I are going to miss her, as is Lucy, her daughter who is still with us.