This is Minnie Hellfire Battersea W…..t, the best 80 quid I’ve ever spent. I first saw her in Battersea eight years ago. I was so lucky to get her. If I’d turned up even an hour later, I have no doubt she’d have already been snapped up. They told me at the time they didn’t expect her to remain in the viewing cabins for long. When I saw her, it was her first day after she’d completed all her health checks. They hadn’t even had time to place a card with her details on the door of the cabin. I saw a dark head poking up from a basket right at the back of the cabin. An assistant asked me if I wanted to go in and say hello. Minnie came over straight away when I called her – no fear or timidity. She was gorgeous – a dark coppery tortoiseshell all over except for flashes of ginger on her chin, chest, belly, and the backs of her paws. And when I stroked her, she flopped over, rolling from side to side and flexing her paws, in what I later found was her signature move. I knew right then she was the one for me. As we got to know and trust one another, she found out I was a pushover and I found out she was feisty, stubborn, and liked to do things her own way. Trying to wrangle her into a cat basket was like trying to stuff a duvet with fangs and claws in there. And did I get the cold shoulder if I dared to inflict any flea treatments on her. But there wasn’t a day went by that she didn’t make me laugh – weaving between my legs as I did my exercises, photobombing Zoom meetings, or demanding to be made a fuss of. I had to let her go in November 2023 as she had end stage lung cancer. Even at the very end she was a fighter. I’d have expected nothing less from her. She was only around ten years old. We should’ve had many more years together, Minnie.

Bette came to us from Battersea when she was a one year old, making it to her 15th Birthday. She had the sweetest nature and brought so much love into our house. She loved nothing more than a warm duvet in winter and tuna fish. Rest in peace Bette - we will remember you always X