George still had some of the blue eyes of a kitten when I took him home. Within weeks that blue tinge had grown into a light golden colour, better suited to his little black face.The skin inside his ears was pink, and they seemed unusually large for his face. They were ears to grow into, like baby clothes bought large to allow for longer wearing. The hair of his face, and most of his body, was medium long and stood at right angles to his body, except for the short hair of his tiny black nose. Little wisps of hair stuck out of his large pink ears and single large hairs grew from his face. His whiskers were modest, as befitted an animal of his size - the only modest thing about him. He looked not so much fluffy as sort of starey haired. Not the most beautiful of kittens except in my doating eyes.
As he grew, his hair stayed the same length and started becoming tougher. The way it grew out of his body changed. It began to grow parallel, sleeking down to become shiney in sunlight. The bottom of his feet, the thick leathery skin of his paws was a bluish black. Those paws that had, like his ears, seemed too big for his tiny kitten body began to take on adult proportions. Small, soft and starey, the little kitten was to grow into a sleek elongated cat, from sweetness to strength.
The poet Robert Southey lamented the end of kittenhood. "Kitten is in the animal world what the rosebud is in the garden; the one the most beautiful of all young creatures, the other the loveliest of all opening flowers, " he wrote. "The rose loses only something in delicacy by its development, - enough to make it a serious emblem to the pensive mind; but if a cat could remember kittenhood, as we remember our youth, it were enough to break a cat’s heart, even if it had nine times nine heart strings."
To my mind, however, the chubbiness of kittenhood has nothing to the full grown beauty of an adult cat. Besides, George was fully grown in character from the start. He was always quite certain what he wanted and he was always ready to play.
I must admit he was a cute kitten. At least his coat didn't look like mine when I was a kitten. My human said I looked like I had stuck my paw into an electrical outlet because my hair stood straight up. She said I was a skinny, fuzzie looking little fellow. Well, I have you know, I am eating well and have my winter weight and am sleeping lots. There was this stuff called rain today, it's been a long time since that happened and I preferred to stay inside in my basket in the bay window.
ReplyDeleteI'm sad that George has not returned home yet, but I'm glad you're sharing his story with us...
ReplyDeleteNow even to a cat that photo looks cute!
ReplyDeleteLouise
I too am sad George hasn't returned yet but I am looking foward almost as much to sharing his life story as I was to reading his blog.
ReplyDeleteSally