Until this morning we had 2 ginger cats.  George & Garfield.  George was probably 14 … a neighbour on the north coast gave him to us and we were never absolutely sure of his age.  He loved to be stroked and would push his head into the open palm of your hand.  Shortly after George moved in he got in a fight with a fox and ended up with a serious injury.  We didn’t think he would survive but the vet was keen to treat him and he was right.  After months and a £1200 bill he was cured and I was grateful for M&S cat insurance.

Garfield came much later and once he had grown into adulthood they had a bit of a love/hate relationship.  Sometimes you would hear a high pitched row going on somewhere in the house and then you would find a tuft of ginger hair and be unsure who had won.  Often they would be curled up together on someone’s bed.

George never seemed to wander too far from the house – most of our neighbours would report he had been inside their homes behaving like he belonged.  He usually came running when he was called, and when you arrived in the cul-de-sac by car he would come bounding across the lawns to get in the back door.

George stopped eating on Christmas Eve and just wanted to be left alone.  On Christmas Day we decided that we would take him to the vet on Boxing day .  We didn’t think he was suffering but his breathing became more laboured.  I had got up early to check on him this morning – he died about 6.30.

I took these 2 photographs of George & Garfield dozing in their favourite place on the back of our sofa just last weekend.