Bubu came into our house when he was three years old. He was already seriously overweight and simultaneously timid and aggressive. His face, paws and tail were dainty, and despite the fact that he wasn’t greedy and didn’t eat much, we could never get the weight off him.

He arrived almost by accident. When his predecessor died, we asked our vet to let us know if he had any cats come in that needed re-homing. Big mistake. Two weeks later the vet phoned and soon after Bubu moved in with us. We thought his name was rather silly, but he wouldn’t answer to anything else, so the name stayed.

He mellowed over the years, especially after we moved from Wellington to Christchurch. In Wellington our house was in the shade of a hill; here our house gets all-day sun. Bubu knew within minutes exactly where the sun was at any time of the day, any time of the year.  Although his temper improved, he still found it necessary to reprimand us at times with a swift whack or an unfriendly bite. In later years he took to stalking my father’s dog whenever he visited. He only once sat on a lap, but every night he would burrow under the cover on our bed and push his way into the best spot.

He went down-hill fast and the weight fell off him. Despite this, he seemed quite happy sleeping in the sun and snuggling up beside us, but never on us.  After a month of this he became lethargic and stopped eating. The vet told us he had almost no kidney function left. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t pee, so sadly we had him euthanised.

I didn’t think I’d miss the bad-tempered old fellow, but I do.