She has been a constant in my life since 1994, not always a welcome one at times she could be utterly infuriating, but she had real character, the runt of a litter I had her and her brother Murphy from the moment they were old enough to leave their mum. Picked up from a pub car park by a friend they made their way across Oxfordshire to Tring and then onto Milton Keynes for 3 years. In MK I lived in a house next door to a hairdressers and Murphy being the bold, friendly cat spent most of his days in there 'looking after the clients'. Ella was independent, determined and just a little bit mental, the number of cups of tea I have spilt as she 'nudges' my elbow to let me know she is there I could not count, being the runt I think she had had to fight for everything including attention and she certainly battled with life over the last few months here.
After MK we moved to Chesham and spent 11 years there, where she guarded the tiny garden out back from any cat/dog foolish enough to try and venture in, seeing her in action was like watching an Alien face hugger with claws launch itself across the garden spitting, hissing and tail in the air.
In 2009 she moved here to France and quickly settled in... albeit the sight of the biggest bowl of water ever (the pool) caused her endless enjoyment stretching to have a drink, she did only fall in once and I missed it!! I opened the door one hot dry day to find a small cat soaked through to the skin sitting on the mat looking a bit sheepish.
On the whole she was healthy and happy her whole life with no vets or illnesses to speak of, so it was sad to see her turn from a rotund little ball of a cat into a skinny frail old girl, but she still had the attitude in bags.
Spending the majority of her time living outside, more to do with the temperature here than anything else I think in early 2012 she went missing, we had had a very heavy snowfall and she had been in and out and when last out disappeared. Fearing the worst after two days and having checked the pool a number of times, solid ice so unlikely she had fallen in, I was resigned to the fact of either finding her when the snow melted or maybe never finding her. Then one morning having a coffee on the balcony I could see a small black shape very still at the end of the neighbours garden, a good 100m away I looked with binoculars and it was Ella!
Going down to get her with some food to encourage her back to the fence, no amount of rattling the food would attract her attention, then she glanced over and like some sort of lunatic traffic cop I was waving and jumping to get her attention - nothing... climbing over the fence I went ti pick her up at which point she jumped, hissed and tried to get away... on getting her inside it was evident that she was now completely blind and deaf.
She was very much an indoor cat now and it was amazing how she coped with the loss of her sight and hearing, navigating around by bump and lean where you bump into something and then lean against it as you move around it. The only time this was an issue was when she got stuck in an endless loop around the coffee table, I felt compelled to move her after three circuits!
She did cope brilliantly and as she still had attitude and could find the food, water, litter tray and couch! There was no reason to think about anything other than letting her live her days out inside.
So a good six months like this and she has had as good a life as I could imagine, I am not sure I would have coped as well in a similar situation.
Then late last week she started to weaken, just slight signs at first and she was still eating the little she did eat and making it to the tray, then over the weekend she had a huge relapse and faded away over the next few days.
Today 1st Aug 2012 at lunchtime I came back from work and sat with her as she gently faded away, there was still some fight left in her and she tried to the end but at 18 I think it was her time and for the best.
I did not realise quite how bad I would take it, I thought I was ready, I thought I would just move on, but there is a empty place now where this little runt of a cat existed and it is going to be a huge task to fill it in.
I will bury her tonight beneath the cherry tree near her brother who died two years ago, and hopefully somewhere she will be staking a claim to a little bit of something...
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