The Life and Times of Mister Toby………………………

This is Mister Toby, a good friend of mine.  The thing is  that *  I am VERY fond of him.  I guess our affair started about 3 years ago or so.  It wasn’t that long after we had moved into this house.  Toby used to drop by the garage which was then still more a garage than a studio.  I used to take cat biscuits in with me, to give him when he dropped by.  As you can see he is a longhaired cat and he has a sweet temperament.  I love how he looks up at me and slightly cocks his head to one side.  What a charmer!!

He feels lovely to stroke and makes a funny noise as regards meowing.  He lets you know when he is dissatisfied with how you are handling him or whatever.  He sure let me know he wasn’t happy when I was gradually trying to cut out the tangles from his long fur.  Boy was he cross with me and I mean I was only trying to help. Huh !!  No need to growl.

I was beginning to think there might be a colony of weird little creatures living inside the rather large lumps of tangled hair and it  just didn’t seem ‘healthy’ to me.

But he likes things to be ‘just so’ and that’s that.  He actually lives across the road with D and H.  Spends about 40% of his time in our house and also visits his Auntie C and Uncle M who live next door to his cat parents i.e., D and H.  He has a ‘sister’ cat who is called Leah.  She seems lovely too but isn’t given to the wandering life, as is Toby.  Seems a much quieter character.

Up until a couple of months ago he was spending about 60% of his time in our house because Auntie C and Uncle M, had their son staying

 with them and he had his two large Alsatian dogs staying too.  This was most off-putting for Toby.  I am sure that he is pleased that they

 have gone back home now - noisy brutes!!!   Plus they were depriving him of the goodies he usually is given by C and M.

Oh it’s a dog’s life (sorry CATS life!!).  With all the extra food he must be eating on top of his regular diet at his ‘cat parents’ you would

imagine Toby might be quite overweight but not a bit of it.  There’s no spare meat on him at all.  In fact there’s not much to him underneath all that lovely shiny fluffy fur.  Although he is quite a character and I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him if I was another cat.

Most times when Toby comes to visit (which is on average about 4 times a day) he sits with me, while I am lying on my sofa taking a wee break after my meals. My own 2 cats are not inclined to indulge me in that way so I suppose that’s one of the reasons that I particularly like his company.  He spends most of his energy in the pursuit of food - I reckon that’s how he burns up most of his calories.

Cats -  don't yah just love um ...I mean........yeah...... I know they are like pretty  indifferent to us really but its just nice to having them around.



Additional images (lino cut prints) are  by  Carl Harris