Muffy and me - a cat's tale

Whenever I am asked whether I miss office life, I always say that I don’t miss the office, I miss the people.

 I’ve spent two years and two months running my own business out of the spare bedroom at Warrillow Towers. I’ve looked at renting an office, or at least a desk in one, but it’s not easy to find and what space is available is expensive for what you get.

 There’s almost nothing in Tamworth so when someone for whom I have done some PR work offered me a desk in an office just over 20 miles away in Solihull, I decided to take a look.

 The office was good, the desk five times bigger than the one on which my computer rests as I craft this post; but weekly travel and parking costs would almost double the amount I was spending on the desk. So, it was back to the drawing board and this tiny desk.

 At least I know I’m not alone; the topic of working from home cropped up at a networking event this week and one of my fellow delegates, a solicitor, revealed that his daily companion was the family dog.

 Mine is the family cat, Muffin. A giant half-Maine Coon, who is 2ft 6ins long from nose to tail when sprawled across the bed behind my desk, he came to Warrillow Towers on the rebound, as it were.

 In the autumn of 2007, Mrs W and I lost our much-loved cat, Kylie; You can tell how old she was (roughly 18) because she was named after the Aussie pop moppet when she was still starring in Neighbours in about 1989. I was living the bachelor life in a dismal one-bedroom flat when she (the cat, not the Aussie..) came into my life.

 It was around this time of year - I recall I was watching a Five Nations rugby match on television. I had the front door open, as I often did in the hope that someone, anyone, would visit and break the dreariness of my weekend existence.

 I was in the kitchen making a cup of coffee when I heard a plaintive ‘miaow’ behind me. My visitor was a tiny little brown-and-white tabby. She belonged to my neighbour who was, to be frank, a bit of a reprobate. She hopped on to my bed, made herself comfortable - and was still in my life almost two decades later.

 Not long after, the reprobate was evicted for not paying his rent and left her behind.

Muffy ponders his next move on
 the chessboard - clearly an intelligent cat! 

 Mrs W (then Miss G) and I had been seeing each other for about 18 months at the time and, as committed animal lovers, were determined that the cat would not be left alone. I took her in to my bedsit, we took her to the vet, had her checked over and she soon became part of the family, moving in with us when we married in July 1990.

 She had quite a life, getting stuck in the roof of the half-built apartment block next to our flat, regularly vanishing into the yard of the Co-Op dairy down the road, losing the sight in one eye after a disagreement with a car, yet still being lively and active well into her second decade.

 When she went to the vets in autumn 2007 for a routine procedure and never came home, we were devastated. We thought we would cope but the winter of 2007-8 was just too quiet at Warrillow Towers so, in the following spring, we decided to look for another cat.

 A workmate of Mrs W’s worked voluntarily for a cat-rehoming charity and quickly came up with Muffin. His owner lived 12 miles away and was having to give him up due to an allergy to cats. We visited one night and fell in love with him.

 We like to think he fell in love with us; we call him the noisiest cat on the planet for his boisterous ‘miaow’ and a yelp which often sounds more like a dog’s bark than a cat expressing his feelings. 

 He’s not supposed to lie on the bed behind me as I work; Mrs W gets irritated by all the cat hair on the duvet cover. So I keep the ‘office’ door open and cast regular glances to my right as he snores on his bed on the landing. But I’m always alive to the sound of him stirring himself awake, stretching those giant limbs as he yawns himself into life, comes and rubs against my leg and then leaps onto the bed.  

 When my mobile rings, it’s not unusual for the caller to inquire ‘What’s that noise in the background?’ as Muffy (as we now know him) shouts to make himself heard in the conversation.

 It’s not quite the same as having what the Americans call ‘water cooler conversations’ with your colleagues but when I do get up to make a cuppa, Muffy chases me excitedly down the stairs.

 Would I go back to work in a big office environment? Emphatically not, for all sorts of reasons - not the least of which is that I don’t think I would find a company who would let my cat sit behind my desk all day.