Week No. 14,600
..and so goodbye to youth. Birthday number 40 came and went with an amazing day at work. I know to many of you that will be an oxymoron but it really was pretty cool. Some folks even made a special trip into work on their day off to give me a card and an envelope full of glitter than still blows around the smoking area at work. Lost of tiny little 40s sticking to everyone’s backsides as they huddle for a fag on the picnic benches. Family wise, I had gratefully spent the present my sister had given me weeks ago and mum got me two things that squarely hit the present nail on the head. Firstly a model Starship Enterprise. Yes, go ahead laugh. Unfortunately for you, it is a) cool b) identical to one I had as a boy and don’t have anymore. Long-time readers, aware of my love of all things trek will assume my abode is awash with models of starships and tie-fighters but you would be wrong. This is the first model I have ever had. So cool is it, however, that I fear it won’t be the last. Secondly, a fascinating little book all about the 70s TV Series “The Survivors”. 40 years and 5 days old. The geek still lives.
And then on Thursday, a sad little tale of a happy little life came to an end. It’s amazing to think I was only 24 when little Sam came into my life. We ‘rescued’ him from what at the time we thought to be a perfectly respectable pet shop. In the years since, it became a matter of record that the owner of this establishment cut some corners in his noble quest for a few quid. The mighty “Scrabble” had just left us after a life of sleeping, eating and more sleeping and there was a gap in the Argue menagerie. So, off we trotted to the shop. Within minutes a small black and white animal was in the cat box and well on the way to the life of an Argue. Sam was born on a farm and like many such cats, grew to the size of a small panther in under a year. His feet in particular could have flattened many a small bird with ease had the very idea been anywhere in his soft and friendly head. You see, fortunately for the rodent and bird population of Hooe (and later Badgers Wood), he didn’t have an unpleasant bone in his entire body. He could occasionally be selfish when sharing the bed with his adopted sibling Alice but I am pretty sure any such acts of aggression were just an attempt to goad her into playing. He was still doing this last week at the age of 16. He never stopped being a kitten. He never stopped doing a lot of things. He met me from work every night. Sitting in the road under the street light, he knew the noise of my car and sound of the footsteps down from the car park. Before he became ill, he would spend many an hour sat in the turning bay (he is in fact captured in the aerial photography on Google Earth and Microsoft Live Search) watching the world go by. Sadly, as we live in a cul-de-sac, he didn’t see much. About 6 months ago, he developed a snuffle which we found out a week ago was actually the result of cancer spreading to his chest. It wasn’t until a lump on his foot caused a visit to the vet that it was confirmed.
So he is gone - having one last kip. He was my little friend for 16 years. He sat on my lap watching Dr Who, slept on my bed whilst I typed thousands of words at this PC and he hid under my chair on Bonfire night. His scratchy meow sounded like thousands of different words in my head in that way only people who love their animals will understand and I miss him terribly.
Fin
Leave a Reply