Guest Writer's Cat Of The Week: Ronnie

Name

Officially Chamtippy Athena because I am a well-posh blue Burmese but She decided I was Veronica.  Well miffed, I can tell you.

Nicknames

I mostly get called Ronnie but also Stop-It-You-Little-Sod.

Theme Tune

Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb, because most of the day that’s what I am.  Plus I do like a good guitar solo.

Age

Six.  A bit insulted that the vet recently said I was getting ‘elderly’.  We Burmese can get into our late twenties which makes me a mere kitten.

Owner

Judy Astley who writes  fun contemporary novels when she’s not playing Facebook Scrabble.  She likes me sleeping on her while she works because I keep her warm.  

Brief Biography

I’m from a litter of six kittens, from Bournemouth. I live in SW London near the Thames but also travel to Their house in Cornwall quite a lot. It’s good there – plenty of wild life and mice and stuff.  It’s 300 miles but I’m a top traveller and I never poo in my basket. (OK, just that once. We never mention it)

Catchphrase  

If it moves, chase it. And then eat it. Though not shrews.

Favourite habits

Drinking water from the loo. Licking Her face to wake her up & feed me. Getting into cars. Visiting all the neighbours, the shops, pub, church and playgroup. I like to check out my manor.

Perfect evening  

In London, any nature programme on TV (except ones with lions.  Big things, lions) especially with birds in. Though it’s slightly embarrassing when you do that thing of leaping at the screen.  In Cornwall, a perfect evening is catching something edible plus a spare that I can leave hidden under a cupboard till She realises there’s a smell. Tee hee.

Favourite food

I’m small but I can do a whole squirrel apart from the tail (fun to leave those on the stairs, along with some sicked-up innards). But She gives me dry stuff the vet says is good for my teeth. Bor-ing.

Defining moment of my life

Jumping into a car (I LOVE doing that) and being taken away by a stranger. I ended up lost. Six whole WEEKS I had to live on the mean streets of Hounslow (shudder) without so much as a bed of my own. Eventually someone took me to a vet who found my microchip and She came and collected me.  I was so happy to be home I didn’t scratch the sofa for a whole day.

Any enemies?

The Nasty Brown Cat up the road. He bit me and gave me an abscess, the bastard.  But She’s bought a big Supa-soaker so he doesn’t come round much now.

If you could make the world a better place for felines, what would you do?   

I’d have a law that all gardens should be dug over every week.  We do favour a bit of soft earth when we’re out there digging holes.

If you could meet a celebrity who would it be and why?  

She tells me I’ve to say Keith Richards because She lurves him but I’m going for Top Cat and his crew: they’re well ‘ard.

Which one of the cats in Under The Paw and Talk To The Tail  would you like to meet?

Hmm.. other cats.. I don’t really ‘do’ other cats but I could give The Bear’s ears a reasonably friendly paw-flick, so long as he didn’t tell anyone.  

Judy Astley's new book, In The Summertime, is out this week, via Bantam Press.