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Our Feline Family.

I recall many cats from my very early childhood mostly the Siamese family.

Dodo, Slinter and Kinkajou were the adults and they'd all been in the family before I was born. In those days, it wasn't the norm to
disable reproduction in family pets. Everyone swapped puppies and kittens in breeding season; and they were given to children as
pets, often too young to leave their mothers.

Dodo and Splinter were our queens, and they were almost opposites: Splinter was so named because she was very skinny long
and slender and bony and fair of colour; while Dodo was a big heavy ball of dark charcoal & ivory, just fluffy enough to think
perhaps that she might have had some Persian blood in her somewhere, though she was a pure bred Siamese. Kinkajou was also
a big cat as dark as Dodo, but his fur was coarser than her silkiness. He was da man', taking care of his ladies and his land like
a grand patriarch. Dodo and Kinkajou were the bonded pair and doted on each other, although Splinter still gave birth to his litters
too Their hearts seemed to reflect their size, as Dodo and Kinky were cuddly and giving creatures, while Splinter had a harder
temperament, often seeming irritated by those around her, and she'd often go off by herself and curl up for the day under the
hedges down our side fence.

Of all the litters of little creamy Siamese kittens I must have played with, there are three kittens we kept that I remember, although
whether they were all three from the same litter or not, I cannot say now. Sput and Nik certainly were, and yes, you guessed it,
they were named for the Russian spaceship, being born around the time of that historic flight into the unknown. Spooky was black
everything else about him was the same breeding as his parents except that he had the most beautiful jet black fur. Even his
eyes were the bluest of blue. He was my special friend for a long time, although I don't remember when we lost him, or to what.

During these early years of my life, the Siamese cats were not the only feline friends I had. A consequence of the swapping and
gifting of kittens around a small town on a regular basis meant that there were always stray kittens. They were often survivors of
being dumped in the bush, or thrown in the river, and I seemed to have found more than my fair share of them, and brought them
home.

Pawnie was one such stray that I found one day during my wanderings. He was tiny and wet and very, very sad. Once he'd
recovered, he was a playful and happy little

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