Double Trouble

When Dee and I first met our grey cat, Bootsy (then called Ethel), she was runmates with an almost-identical brother, Austin. We were actually quite tempted to take two of them home - particularly when Austin crawling up my head - but we were told by the RSPCA that the cats needed to be separated, "because Ethel needs to come out of Austin's shadow".

In retrospect, this statement seems laughable, since these days I can't even imagine the shadow of Dracula's Castle giving her much trouble. As Bootsy has become increasingly the boss of all our other moggies (is it possible to have a pride of cats? If so, Bootsy has a pride of five), we've often wondered what became of Austin, and just what kind of superenormous personality Boots's more dominant brother would have by now, so it was with more than a little interest that I read an email recently from Graham, who had read about Bootsy's appearance in Under The Paw in a newspaper, and said that, from all the evidence - the rescue centre, the date, the violently narcissistic personality traits - it appeared that she was the long lost sister of his cat Oscar (nee Austin).

If this was an episode of Cilla Black's Surprise Surprise, we'd probably be arranging for the pair to reunite in mutually suitable territory, where they would sniff one another's arses, hiss a little bit, then proceed to completely ignore each other. As it is, Graham and I are probably going to be content just to send one another a few photos (I'm not sure video messaging could have any real benefits in this scenario). As you can see from the pics below, they're still very similar, and although Oscar has a mannish thickness about him, he's quite tiny in a Bootsyish way. According to Graham, this does not stop him from regularly terrorising cats twice his size.

Bootsy:





Oscar (the last one is my favourite):