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Meet Midnight…

Some of you have been suffering under the illusion that you have met ALL the Granite Glen menagerie…

Sure, you may have met dogs and horses, cattle and emus, goannas and birds
But there is one particular member of our household I have been tardy in introducing…
Her name is Midnight.

Middy for short.
(And in Australia, everything gets shortened.)
She is not one of your cuddly, suck-up kinda felines.
She was a wild kitten, who adopted my mother about 8 years ago. Well, that’s Mum’s story – Mum had a bit to do with it too. She would leave out tidbits for this scrap of black fluff, and earned her trust bit by bit. My mother is most definitely a cat person. Actually she’s an animal person who harboured dreams of being a vet. But that’s another story.
Today we are talking about Middy.

She is quite beautiful – a witch’s cat with soft black fur and lamp-like eyes. But she is not a particularly outgoing creature. In fact Middy disappears whenever visitors come to our home. It took her a good week to show her huge yellow eyes near the house after we moved in. And she is particularly not a fan of kids. She has been known to vanish at the mere mention of them.

But it seems Middy is mellowing in her middle age, and is content these days to curl up in a corner as long as our children (no visitors!) aren’t being too rowdy or obnoxious.

Late at night, often when I am posting on my blog, she’ll even deign to climb onto my lap and sit there for a few minutes, contentedly clawing my thigh. We endure this charade of cat-love for about ten minutes (max) and then I get up and find some fresh meat for her to eat. She smiles her little black cat grin and settled down to her hard-earned tucker.
It’s our little arrangement.

I do love Middy, but perhaps in a different way to the up-close-and-personal way I adored her earliest predecessor (in this house)… he was a Siamese named Gabriel, who lived to 18 and was positively half-human. Now he loved humans. Couldn’t get enough of us. I have a photo somewhere of him lying in one of our doll cots, where we had tucked him in.

Middy doesn’t mind us. So long as we feed her and give her somewhere warm to curl up.
It’s really not so much for a wild cat to ask, eh Middy?.

9 Comments

  • debby

    I love dogs. I love cats. Right now I have a big dog who does not love cats. Ergo, I have no cats. But there is nothing more soothing than a purring cat on your lap when you’re reading and having a hot cup on a cold winters night. I miss that. A big loyal dog who would squash you flat if he tried to sit on your lap is just not the same. And he doesn’t purr.

  • Jayne

    LMAO
    Ohhh you’ve been soooo owned by Middy!
    Cats put out pheromones when they knead your lap with their claws, it’s a way of marking their territory.
    So she owns you – you feed her – all’s right in the feline world of ownership and slave LOL 😉

  • Pencil Writer

    So true about cats owning people and not the other way round! We at this household are cat loving people. I’ve lost of how many cats we’ve had live at our house! Your Middy looks SO MUCH like our last cat–Miss Kitty. (Yes, a most original name, I know.) Her eyes might have been a tad more green than your Middy’s but she was the same shape and look as yours, including the tiny white bib on her front.

    We miss our Kitty. She was very sweet and family friendly, but very gun shy with strangers.

  • steviewren

    My big ole 6’3″ son is a cat lover. He has a black cat and he adopted, better known as wooed a wild kitten he found starving near a local store. Your Middy is beautiful.

  • Bush Babe (of Granite Glen)

    Hey guys… sorry I have been so slack in responding this week. I’m away from Granite Glen for a bit longer than anticipated so finding it hard to update!!!

    Will try and post today if I get a chance…

    Hugs
    BB

  • Country Girl

    "We endure this charade of cat-love for about ten minutes (max). . . "
    HILARIOUS!
    Yes, you are absolutely correct! Middy is almost a dead-ringer for our Blackie. And they share almost the same disposition. However, right now Blackie is in love mode. We left her alone all week when we took our road trip and now she's always following us everywhere.

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