Bella - Part One ....how she adopted me

Bella strolled on into my life right through a kitchen window in Summer 2007 and has been a part of it ever since.

Bella is my four year old (turned 4 this month) female tabby cross who thinks of me as her mummy cat and means the world to me.

Ginger Kittens at the Shelter

I'd always wanted a cat.....well specifically a kitten ....my dream was to have a ginger tabby who I would call Muffin. I don't know why that name, but that's what I came up with as a child. My brother would have a silver tabby called smokey and my mum would have a tortoiseshell cat. That was our dream, but as we didn't have the money or the space we never got them.

I moved into my third and final home in Liverpool at the end of August in 2007. The first year we had lived in student halls before I moved into a house with 5 of my female friends the next year. We were there for two years, although I missed most of the second year due to having to defer after becoming very unwell and not being able to cope anymore. This meant I'd be in Liverpool a fourth year and luckily one of my flat mates would be too, so we moved in together. This is where I met Bella.

We had to move in by a certain point, and also as I had a lot of exam revision to do which i found hard to do at home, I moved back to Liverpool a couple weeks before uni restarted. Being in a new house all on my own was pretty lonely and I had been suffering from depression and finding life difficult ever since I became ill at 19 just before my second year started. However I'd only been there about a day when I heard a mewing in the back yard. I opened the back door to find a kitten demanding something, I didn't know what. I was very patient and quiet and she came to me and was very friendly and seemed to love attention once she knew she didn't need to be scared of me. She wandered off after a bit and I got on with things. Later on she came back, so I figured she was a local cat, but then the next day she returned mewing outside the kitchen window really wanting to get in, seeming really hungry. I gave her a tiny bit of milk as she seemed hungry, but I also knew that dairy milk is bad for cats so I didn't want to make her poorly.

Besides the distraction of the young cat, once I'd organized my stuff, I had revision to get on with, but at one point feeling a bit down and tired I had fallen half asleep on my notes. Half awake I was suddenly aware of footsteps coming up the stairs, which scared me, but my brain didn't have time to rationalize that they weren't loud enough to be human, as I lifted my head up to find this cat standing over me on my bed and wanting attention. 

The intruder ....

Making herself at home already

It was seeming like she didn't have a home, but I wasn't sure and just thought it was really nice to have a friendly neighborhood cat who came to visit. However when inspecting the back yard a couple days later I found a cat food bowl and water bowl. It was starting to make more sense why she seemed to think this was her home, it looked like she had been left behind by the previous occupants. 
Some of the boys came over one night before Jen moved in and were trying to figure out whether the cat was male or female. Raj who was cooing over her like a baby had a feeling she was a girl. Bella was so good natured and let them pick her up and fuss around her and she didn't get annoyed at all.Jen met her and when she'd moved in we decided we better start feeding the cat and go about finding if she did have an belong to someone in the area. It was looking unlikely though due to my findings and the fact that even before feeding her she would mew constantly outside the window to be let in, so I took to leaving it open for her. After taking her to the vets we found out she was indeed a girl, in perfect health and only a couple of months old.....so still a kitten. She also had no chip, but she had been neutered. 
We took to asking neighbors and looking out for lost cat posters, but no one seemed to be missing her, so we decided to look after her.
We had to come up with a name we all liked. Nolan (Jen's boyfriend) and I both thought of Bellatrix for some reason ....but even though it sounded good, this kitten was anything but evil like the Harry Potter Character. The three of us decided to shorten it to Bella. Although the boys had other idea's on their next visit....even umbrella was thrown up ....and upon hearing the word she walked right over to one. So it became her middle name, and to humour Raj it was followed up bu Catminder Singh. Now though it is just Bella.

She was so lovely and cute and I had some funny moments with her, like opening my desk drawer to get some paper only to find her curled up asleep in it, trying to revise but her wanting attention so she would come and sit right on my text books or notepad so she could be stroked. Oh and she loved to attack my pens.  
However we did start to get difficulties.....she didn't like being shut out of rooms so would make a lot of noise or try and scratch to get it....this was at nighttime as she wanted to be in my bedroom. Often I would leave my door open for her, but then I didn't have my privacy.
She also made a couple of scratch marks in the house, which was a huge worry as we weren't actually allowed pets and had a big deposit on the place. When someone did need to come round to see the house I had to go and hide her at Ian's house for a couple of hours!


To try and stop her coming upstairs at night and waking us and trying to get in my room (which somehow she would manage even if the door was shut) we kept her in the bathroom a couple of nights. She hated this however and one morning we came down to find she had ripped some of the floor up. Jen was horrified and decided she had to go :( I could understand because it was going to be hard to fix and hide that and there was the potential she would do more damage and we would be buggered if they found out we had a cat and couldn't afford to lose the huge deposit. At the same time though I was hurt, angry and heartbroken. We'd had her for several months now and she was very close to me.
When the R.S.P.C.A lady came to pick her up Bella got upset straight away, she could tell something was happening and when she got near her she was very on edge as she doesn't like other cats and this woman smelt of them.

I was so so upset losing her and thinking I would never see her again. It hurt so much and I cried a lot over that time. Bella had helped as a distraction with the difficulties I had living my life due to my illness and now she was gone. Jen didn't seem to miss her at all.
However my sister came to my rescue when she saw how much I was missing her and decided in the meantime she would get Bella back and she could live at her house, until I was in my next place. I am so grateful to her for this, as otherwise Bella would not be in my life now. 
She also helped Bella with some health problems, as she occasionally had been getting an upset tummy and it turns out she has kitty IBS, so now has special food to help her with this.


After uni, I lived at my sisters for two years with Bella and she was very happy there. She loved the garden, especially when it was overgrown and just loves attention and being stroked. She's a bit of a tart really :) 
She now lives with me in Leeds and I'm so glad she chose me as her owner. My next post will be some of my favourite photo's of her and some little bits about her character.




                                                     x - X - x