A Little Barrel on Legs

I don't often get the time to sit down and write a post these days. I'm usually so busy writing, reading, working, studying that I don't get time to let you all in on my deepest thoughts.Today is different. Today, I wanted to share with you my lovely little puddy tat. Sasha. 

I took this photograph just a few weeks ago. My lovely other half had gone to visit his mum for the weekend and after working for six hours, I was in the home office and editing Behind Closed Doors when Sasha decided she was going to be quite happy sitting on my knee as I worked. It was so hot in the office I was surprised she stayed there. But she did and I, well, I didn't feel quite so alone. 

Believe it or not, Sasha's almost fifteen years old, blessed with the youthful look of a kitten (LOL) and a healthy appetite. So small, and rounded, she's often referred to a little barrel on legs or sometimes stumpy. So small, I didn't think she could get up on the kitchen unit. We've been living in This house for ten years and I've never caught her up there once until only a few weeks ago, she managed to get some meat off the counter while I wasn't looking. In fact, there was this one time, just after we'd moved in, when she jumped out of our bedroom window on to the roof of the bay window and couldn't get back up. It led to me dangling head first out of the window to grab her and bring her back inside. Daft cat!

She was healthy and happy and incredibly stubborn. She refused to drink out of a water bowl until less absolutely necessary, preferring the pre-run water from the bathroom tap. When she started to get too old to jump in and out of the bath we put a water bowl in from of it. We frequently had to refill it for her. :) and in the winter she'd snuggle up under the duvet with us or on long sleepless nights she'd lie beside me and I'd fall asleep to her gentle purring. 

Fast forward to this week and my little barrel on legs had been off her food for almost a week, not eating one thing but something else, then not eat that but a third, she wouldn't drink from the bowl and I had to put her in the bath to drink, and finally she began struggling with the stairs. Then two days ago she just wouldn't do anything at all. I think you know what I'm going to say and it was for the best. There was a lump in her stomach and arthritis in her back legs and the weight she'd lost over the last week or so ... I didn't want her in anymore pain. 

So I'm now sat imagining both Kiara and Sasha making more noise than a heard of elephants as they run up and down the heavenly staircases in the middle of the night.