Pilgrim's pets, new cats and other animals I have loved

Growing up on a self sufficient smallholding meant that sometimes animals were my best friends. We had rare breed pigs (Berkshires & Middle Whites), Dexter and Jersey cows, Welsh badger faced sheep, Golden Guernsey goats, horses, donkeys and an array of ducks, chickens, geese and turkeys. Including a prize winning bastard of a Bronze turkey stag called Sodom. Mum delighted in giving the animals 'unusual' names, we had a pair of Blue Pekin bantams called Anthony and Cleopatra, a hideous Dorking cockerel called Killer, two very tame, very old black sheep called Evadne and Hilda after Hinge & Bracket. The pigs were named after flowers; we had Petunia, Tulip, Pansy and the beautiful Flower, the cows were Buttercup and Daisy and the oddly named Lady Diana, the donkeys were Daffodil & Jubilee, the lambs were all things like hotpot, mint sauce and rosemary, the geese were George and his ladies. I loved the cycle of life with animals, staying up all night with a farrowing sow and catching newborn piglets in your arms, clearing the mucus from their airways and hearing that first piglet squeak always delighted me.

We also had numerous rescue dogs, cats and house rabbits too, they have always been a big part of Mum & Dad's life, Dad lovingly endures it, Mum adores it! The dogs have varied from Pekingese to Newfoundland's and every type in between. Each pet having a rescue story and a unique personality, and each stealing a little bit of our heart. Safe to say the animals ruled the house, at one point we had 9 dogs and they all wanted a space on the sofa!

Growing up in this way did mean I felt a little different to my friends. Their houses were always much cleaner, and they didn't have broody coops, or heat lamps with boxes of teeny chicks huddled under them in their bedrooms, or incubators in their hallway, or newborn early spring lambs warming in the bottom of the Rayburn. Sometimes I longed for a matching dressing table set, but I'd have probably put my wellies all over it, and my friends were always quick to come over to our house rather than hang out at theirs!

It was therefore, only natural that when I left home at the tender age of just 18, I would end up accumulating pets. I had loads of pet rodents, rats, Siamese ones, brown ones, albino and hooded. Hamsters, Dwarf and Siberian and gerbils. You could barely get into my room at university and all night I could hear the comforting sound of gnawing bars, happy rat chattering and squeaking exercise wheels. I missed the open spaces of home, but these little ridiculously named buddies were my sanity - my room smelt like home!

Fast forward several years on and we find ourselves in a new house and with a new family of pets. Most of the animals we live alongside now are wild. We have Richard and Judy the obese wood pigeons who live in the huge listed Silver Birch near the garage. Richard is a slapstick genius, often you hear him flapping about as he falls off his branch when dozing off. We have King Tut & Cleo the blackbirds, he's quite a gent and seems to collect food for both of them and ensure the coast is clear for her. Mr Robin who always has a beady eye on the comings and goings of us humans, the shy hedgehog Tiggywinkle family, the unnamed slugs, collectively known as the slimy plant wreckers (ugh, but good for the hogs), and lots of beautifully busy and abundantly fluffy bumble bees, all called the Bee Gees. We also have a lovely little black hamster called Mordecai. She resembles an inquisitive, velvety little mole and chews anything she can get her little paws on!

Tomorrow we are getting two new additions.....I promised the boys that once the worst of the building work was done - ie the roofing, meaning no more scaffolding, we would get a cat. True to my word, we met with two lovely ladies from the cats protection league this week (strangely I'd met one of them before when I was 19 and got run over by a drunk lorry driver. She'd been the driver of the car he'd hit before he'd knocked me off my pushbike). They vetted the house and us. I cringed a little showing them into the sitting room, which is full of my taxidermy pets (these weren't my actual pets, just rehomed vintage taxidermy pieces). I laughingly reassured them that this wouldn't be the fate of any adopted puss we had! We passed, and they tantalised us with pictures of sweet whiskered felines, looking for love. They showed us photos of a brother and sister who couldn't be separated, who were just under a year old and very playful. Both marmalade coloured, ginger mogs, with big amber glowing eyes. Our hearts were stolen. We went to meet them them on Thursday and they put on a fabulously, tarty display. Rolling around, batting us with sweet white tipped paws and purring loudly....well, how could we resist! All being well they will start settling in with us tomorrow, and as is our family tradition, their names will be Behemoth and Osiris. xxx

Dennis Wheatley - my taxidermy 'pet' goat x