In 2004 I purchased two very young kittens from a neighbour; a tabby boy and a black girl. Because they so resembled my sister's cats (Tazzie the tabby boy, Scout the black girl) I named mine Tazzie and Scout too.

Scout is no longer with us, most probably due to a collision with a motor vehicle. Such is life. Picking her cold stiff body up out of the road the next morning and burying her devastated me, and I’m normally quite ‘stiff upper lip’.

Some months later Tazzie was also struck by a vehicle, but managed to drag himself home, meowing pitifully, one leg very obviously broken. Again, quite upsetting, but luckily for me (and unluckily for my bank account) my local vet managed to rebuild him with some judiciously placed titanium pins and plates. All rather coincidental because a motorcross accident some months prior to Scout’s death had left me with titanium pins and plates in my foot! It’s a strange old world huh?