Kavli

Continuing reading ancient diaries and opening up old history I came across an entry for March 85, which made me cry all over again. For many years I had a cat, a female called Makarios (like the Cypriot Archbishop of the time), picked up as a tiny kitten on a building site in London, probably the runt of a feral cat's litter, abandoned and still dependant on the mother. After great efforts on my part the tiny thing survived, and as she grew we gave her all sorts of nicknames, Mac, Kavli, Fav, Kav, among others. This is how the entry went:-

Sunday 31 March 1985

Start of British Summertime today. Not that it makes any difference, the weather is still foul. Rainy and windy. Kavli is a little better again. She eats and drinks, she moves about a little, she washes and grooms herself, but I think the heart has gone out of the brave little fighter, literally. Our tough old boot is being knackered by her worn out heart. She breathes laboriously and sometimes she makes a whistling sound over and over. And still she seems happy and grateful for everything I do. The Vet also said that she must be able to see very little now. I can't quite believe that, she doesn't seem to have any difficulties negotiating her way around the furniture. Be that as it may, the signs of extreme old age are abundant: few teeth, loss of weight, shaggy fur, ill-health, etc. And still she manages to look beautiful and arrange herself absolutely adorably. Just now the silly baggage tried to climb on to my window sill through the open window. It broke my heart to have to stop her because I think she might slip off; her footing is very unsteady.

Oh, I do love the beastie very much and when she's gone there is nobody left for me to  love and cuddle and stroke. And there'll be nobody to show me, over and over, how much she loves me. Kav comes running to the front door when she hears my step; she follows me up and down the stairs - often two or three times in a row; she says good morning and good night in her own inimitable way by purring loudly and winding herself round and round my legs, thumping her head on my feet and finally rolling over in front of me for a tickle on the tum. Every time I touch her lightly she purrs with happiness. She insists on being in the same room with me at all times; her eyes follow me about when she's not sleeping. She follows me into the garden like a dog at heel, but when I stay in, she stays in, no matter how nice the weather. If I am sitting out there, however, old Kav quite happily trots around the plants, tearing them up to cover her toilet.

Kav has been with me for fifteen years. She sat on my lap, night after night, when the children were in bed and P off on his nightly travels. Kav and the bottle were my only company for a long time. I gave up on the bottle but Kav didn't give up on me. She turned cross and cantankerous in her middle years with everyone but me. Like any proud and beautiful creature Kav always knew what was due to her but she paid back the homage with undying loyalty and great affection. So many people think only dogs love you; cats may not accept you as their master, but their love and loyalty can be as great as that of any other creature on this Earth. I swear old Kav knew when I was sad or when I was crying, she would come for extra rations of stroking and tickling at such time. And I also swear to it that she knew how to make me feel better.

I will miss her so very much when she dies, I am crying at the thought of it. She is a part of me in a way nobody and nothing else is. With her I've always been myself, never ever have I needed "to put on a front". Maybe I didn't want to hurt the children, so I'd pretend to be ok. With Kav that wasn't necessary. There were times she sat on my lap, my hands playing in her silky fur and tears would stream down my face.

With Kavli gone a whole chapter of my life will close, I will not be able to show weakness to any other living creature. A and Mum would rather not know, they want me strong; S would be deaf and blind to it and P would exploit it. Darling little Kavli, you have been a truer friend to me than any human being.

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Kavli died on 6th of June 85, just over two months after this entry. The Vet had been on at me for weeks to make an end. All treatments only worked for a few days, then she deteriorated again. I wish I had gone sooner than I finally did.

By Way of a Diary Entry

I need a wife. Even a husband would do.

I am old. Like the castle. And like the castle I just want to sit and look pretty. I want to brandish my pension book and leave big decisions to others, younger than me. I want to choose what I do, not have a course of action forced on me.   Enjoyable things. I don’t want to learn new tricks or do jobs which are meant for young people. Or men. Yes, men. Nothing of the feminist about me today.

Yesterday I was hanging out of the velux on the sloping roof trying to clear the channels either side of the window from moss and debris. There’s a new seepage stain in the cupboard in the roof space, which means rainwater gets in somewhere. Three different sets of workmen have looked at the roof, scratched their heads,  rearranged their boys’ bits, fiddled with tiles and sheets of some metal and gone away, leaving a big bill behind. One of these days that window will be the death of me.

I’ve been going into CBT -  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy -  on the internet this morning. There’s this phobia I have about driving up a particular steep lane in Valley’s End. About five years ago I lost control of the car on this lane, rolled backwards into a gate, demolished the gate and wrote off the car; nobody else was involved and nobody got hurt. Since then I have avoided this lane. Unfortunately that makes coming into Valley’s End from the Welsh side a bit of a bummer; either I have to go the long way round, two to three miles extra, or persuade Beloved to do that bit which actually takes no more than five minutes. Beloved no longer has a driving licence because of his poor eyesight.  Making him drive could cause problems with the law. So you see, one way and another it would be good if I could get over this phobia.

I told my doctor and he advised CBT. Really and truly, I would prefer to sidestep the whole issue, ostrich-like (do ostriches really stick their heads into the sand? I must find out); but Knighton is where the poetry group meets and my face-girl has her treatment room. Which do I choose? Give them up or endure the inevitable panic attacks?

A competent wife or husband would take this decision off me. They’d only need to be part-time, of course. The law also frowns on bigamists.


I learned on the website of MIND - for better mental health that CBT can be an effective therapy for a number of problems:

anger management
anxiety and panic attacks *
chronic fatigue syndrome
chronic pain
depression *
drug or alcohol problems
eating problems *
general health problems
habits, such as facial tics
mood swings *
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) *
phobias *
post-traumatic stress disorder
sexual and relationship problems
sleep problems *

The list awards me seven brownie points, that is if chocolate cravings and a mild need to arrange pills, chocolate buttons, newspapers, spoons and socks in orderly matching pairs, strictly aligned according to length, count.

What happened to those wonderful days when the aged were shoved into the inglenook, or in particularly drastic cases, pushed into a cupboard, fed when someone remembered and otherwise forgotten and left to get on with drooling and gnashing their toothless gums. They never had to make a decision.  Actually, that sounds remarkably like some modern nursing homes, except there you may have the added excitement of being called names and given a slap when the carers can’t force your arthritic arms and legs into your garments quickly enough.