Puzzle Puzzle + Puss asleep on my bed & Puss

These cats were chosen and brought home from the RSPCA on 25 October 1997, the day after we returned from our holiday in Perth. It was the start of an unnaturally hot, early and long summer. Dac found Puss (and bestowed her striking name) within minutes of entering the sauna-like heat of the Cat House.

My quest took somewhat longer. I was looking for a tabby too, and short-haired tabbies were scarce that day. There was one sharing a cell with Puss, almost her twin except that it lacked the startled expression. When I hauled it out, it climbed over my head and down my back. Shades of Minou: never again! And yet Puzzle is a ginger cat ... like Minou. I didn't want to live with another terrorist, and I didn't want an orange cat when I was looking for a green one, but she was so friendly, and we were so keen to get home out of the heat!

Two theories have been advanced about the mystery of Puzzle's being ginger and female: one is that she has more than two colours (she has a white tail tip and two black whiskers!) and the other is that she's the offspring of two ginger cats. Whatever the explanation, and in spite of her furrowed brow, she is good-natured, affectionate ("a floozy", says Brian) and (while Puss was alive to speak for her) almost speechless - except in the car, where she yowls like the best of 'em.

 

Puss + Puzzle

We liked having two cats. They surged and seethed about. There was always one to see you off or welcome you home, and usually two to have a rest with. Puzzle and Puss got along moderately well, although these pictures remind me that they liked each other better at the beginning. They used to take it in turns to sit in my wardrobe in the mornings:

Cats lying in the wardrobe amidst hats

In the afternoons, they sat like cat-boats in the hallway, launching themselves hopefully every time I wandered by, and making me feel guilty about making them wait for their appointed dinnertime. In the evening, they sat on people (mainly Dac) or chased Dac's laser pointer or caught up on a bit more sleep.

Cats set a good example by resting and stretching lots. I wouldn't be without them.

More about Puzzle, our surviving cat, appears on the Cats page. Here's more about Puss

Puss and Puzzle

This page created 11 May 1998; last updated 17 December 2007