We used to take small vacations 4-5 times a year. No more than 6 nights at a time, because we had 3 cats.
Of course we arranged for someone to look after them, the 3 cats got on well and they seemed happy keeping each other’s company, but we still didn’t want to be away from them for too long.
Two of them died in 2014, one after the other, at the age of 12, and that’s when we stopped going away.
Tiny, the last remaining cat was extremely clingy. Suddenly, we could barely leave him alone in the house because he would howl otherwise. We couldn't leave him with a pet boarding service because he'd get stressed. Tiny needed us, in the house, with him.
So we stopped travelling 8 years ago. We've not been away from London even for a day...for 8 years!
We've also had a dog, so inevitably, most of our leisure time was spent in the park and we would always make sure to come home within 2-3 hours max. for Tiny.
So we were kind of waiting for him to die for a long time, not just for the sake of our vacations but to make any long-term plan.
Finally 2 months ago, he died at the age of 20. To cut the story short, he got old & weak but he was extremely healthy according to the vets. His appetite was incredible. Died suddenly, didn’t suffer, and 20 was a great age.
Both my husband and I loved him dearly. Tiny was really a special one. We’d like to believe he had a long, loving, and happy life. And course, we were sad that he was gone. But we also find a few benefits to being cat-less for the first time in years.
#1 Vacations!
We’ve just booked our first holiday in 8 years - a cottage near Cambridge (England) for a few days in September.
#2 House Is Clean
No surprise, but no more cat hairs, our floors are clean and the vacuum cleaner is clean.
Tiny loved eating, vomiting, and eating his vomit (eww, sorry.) So less floor polishing to do.
#3 We Can Have Normal Things In The House
- We couldn’t just leave food on the table and go to the bathroom for 1 minute because the cats would jump up and eat it.
- No flower vase (or anything fragile) as they would knock it off.
- Our Christmas trees and decorations were usually ruined by Christmas day.
…to name a few. All our furniture is badly scratched. We couldn’t even consider buying a leather sofa. We can now.
#4 No More Cat Litter!
I never realised how stressed I was about having to stock up on enough cat litter all these years.
One bag of litter sand that weighs 7.5kg (16.5 lbs) would only last for less than 3 days. It had to be this specific brand - we tried all sorts of others but they were all either too heavy, too expensive, or Tiny didn’t like them.
Especially during the lockdown and the product shortage period, I had to make sure we had at least a dozen of bags. I could starve myself but I couldn’t run out of cat litter. That wouldn’t be funny.
We share the house chores and I was in charge of cleaning the cat toilet. My husband & I had the same conversation over and over again over the years;
Husband: “I can’t be bothered to do food shopping this week, shall we just get some bread and milk?”
Me: “NO. We need more cat litter by this Friday. We need to go to Sainsbury’s (big supermarket)”
Husband: “Why, can’t we just get it delivered?”
Me: “I've already checked. It’s out of stock online right now.”
So this may sound ridiculous, but my home life for the past 15 years (since I moved in with my husband - the cats were his, originally) was dominated by a quest for cat litter, cat litter, cat litter, cat litter... It's finally over! I'm finally released!
Lastly, if I sound like I loathe cats/pets, I really don’t. I’m an animal lover, have worked for a rescue centre in London for 5 years in the past. But right now, I don’t think we’re getting another cat for a long time.
Thanks for reading.
All the images are mine.
Ray