Sadie was a present to myself. In the absence of any children of our own, I decided that I would make it my life's work to breed Siamese, but not the modern "ratfaced" Siamese that seemed to be making it to the showbench, but the traditional Siamese that I remembered from my youth.

My Mum saw an article in one of the cat magazines and passed it on to me. A lady in the Channel Islands had set up an organisation to help reintroduce the traditional style Siamese and in order to find out more and in the hope that she would know where I would find a good kitten to become my breeding queen, I contacted her.

Whilst we are no longer in contact, I was able to find a breeder in Milton Keynes. Originally she had decided to give up breeding and was looking to rehome her queens. I was very excited and contacted her straight away, but she had already changed her mind - but she did have some kittens. I went down to see them when they were about 6 weeks old. There were lots of tiny kittens clambering all over the breeders utility room, several pregnant mums wandering around under our feet and a stud housed in a proper pen in the garden. She suggested that I take the largest female, and that was Sadie, but I had to wait until she was 12 weeks old and had had her injections.

I was thrilled to be awaiting the arrival of my new kitten - always a joy to be expecting a new kitten, but little did I know that I was also to be expecting someone else. Just a week before I was due to collect Sadie, I discovered that I was pregnant - but we decided that I would be able to go ahead and have Sadie to breed kittens as well as bring up a baby, and on 23rd September 1996, I drove to Milton Keynes to collect her.

Sadie meowed in her basket all the way back home. She was petrified and spent the first week or so hiding in my underwear drawer. She spat at the children who came to see her, and would only come out at night to sleep up tight against me. I'm afraid that she wasn't as "bomb proof" as I was expecting having really been isolated from the household with her brothers, sisters and the other kittens in that utility room - and she was afraid of everything.

However, as time went on, she gradually acclimatised to us all and she decided to attach herself to Cracker. Wherever Cracker went, there would be Sadie. Unfortunately Cracker hated the attention, he just could not cope with this little thing following him around and he started spitting and huffing at her and getting very upset. In the end I had to intervene and separate them, and this resulted in Sadie attaching herself to Al Capone. He didn't mind at all and it was, and still is, funny to see this little white shadow following our big black and white boy!

My plans to breed Sadie came to a halt when Elizabeth was born and she was put "on the pill". I intended this to be a temporary measure and about ten months later decided that it was time to take her to a stud. She wasn't going to oblige straight away though, and it was several months before she called again. I had already been told not to breed her the first time she called after being "on the pill" and so the next time she called I took her to a lovely stud in Taunton. After three days the stud owner called me to say that Sadie had been very unhappy, that she had attacked the stud and had also stopped calling. She didn't think that the pair of them had mated but couldn't be sure. So I went down to collect Sadie. By the time I got back home, she had started calling so I had to turn around and go back again.

On collecting Sadie a  few days later we still didn't know if she and the stud had mated. He was a very gentle boy and I think that Sadie just hated him! However we had to wait several weeks to see whether she was pregnant, but this wasn't to be.

I had planned that later the next year we would try again, but Sadie took the matter into her own paws. Whilst I was recovering in hospital from having my tonsils removed, she escaped from the house whilst calling - and took up with the local tabby tom. We hoped that nothing had happened - well, I was secretly hoping that she was pregnant, - but when we came back from our two week early Summer holiday, it was obvious that there were kittens on the way and her tummy was getting bigger and bigger!

On 21st June 2000 just as I was getting ready for bed, I could see signs that Sadie was going to give birth fairly soon. I had already made up a box with a blanket in inside my wardrobe so that she was in the dark and warm, and I showed her where to go. I stayed with her all night, stroking her as her poor tummy heaved - and was given the delight of watching her babies born - the biggest first followed soon after by another, then a long break with the next two coming almost simultaneously. I will never know who arrived first, second, third or fourth as they were all wet and dark when they were born and it wasn't until it was lighter in the morning that I could see the colours.

Sadie - Christmas 2002

Sadie has made a wonderful mother. She cared for them beautifully with me the novice watching on. She washed them and fed them as though she was born to it. She still cares for the "kittens" now over two years old - Bramble and Barley that still live with us. She still goes around the house calling them both, making sure that she knows where they are and often calls to tell them when I have put food down. Bobbin and Basil went to live with a friend and are very happy in their home - I am lucky that I see them often.
 

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