We have a cat called Bollo. (We were fans of The Mighty Boosh when we got him). Bollo is a black cat. A big black cat. Bollo is also a very troubled cat…

Jonny never wanted a feline friend but I was adamant that as soon as we bought our own home we had to have one. I have always had cats and to me a house isn’t homely without a furry pointy eared friend wandering in and out and curling up on your lap of an evening. I love the independence of a cat, the fact they don’t need much looking after and mostly because you have to earn a cats love – they don’t just give it, they are superior in their intelligence to other animals!

I brought Bollo home as a tiny four week old kitten. I wanted to collect him weeks later as he shouldn’t have left his Mum that young but the woman said if I didn’t take him she’d give him to someone else and as soon as I’d seen him I just knew he was ours. I sheepishly brought him in expecting I’d have to talk Jonny round. I’d called him to let him know I was bringing our new black kitten home and he hadn’t sounded happy but… As soon as he saw Bollo he loved him too!

And we continued to love him. He came everywhere with us and we’d take him back and forth from Norwich where our parents live not being able to bare leaving a neighbour to feed him while we were away. We cuddled him and brought him for his injections, got him micro chipped, fed him only the best food and when he was old enough we ‘had him done’.

We would have taken him for ‘the snip’ anyway but because he’d got rather boisterous we were thankful that he’d become old enough for the operation. Everyone said he would calm down afterwards and we certainly hoped so because he’d become, let’s say difficult. But…

He didn’t!

He got worse! And he went completely off the rails! He loves Jonny and always has done but he started giving me the cold shoulder soon after his op. Then he started getting very clawy with me and would pounce whenever I walked anywhere near him, grabbing my ankles in a full body grip while sinking his teeth into my flesh.

I went off Bollo a bit at that point but he was ours so what could I do?

We couldn’t have him in the bedroom because he spent the whole night slamming the window with his paw to be let out then five minutes later tapping on the glass to come back in again. We shut him out but he would throw himself at the door until we relented with the thud, thud, THUD! In the end we have had to fashion a box as a guard for the door and it seems to do the trick… There are however, many other bad Bollo traits that leave us without solution…

And then he started fighting… With anything that moved! Other cats, dogs that walked by on leads and even foxes! Eventually he came off the worse one and had his first trip to the vets! Well… If I thought he was clawy with me he went positively feral with the vet who had to fully sedate him in order to examine him! He had a claw embedded in his back and an infection. His vet’s bill was FOURTEEN HUNDRED pounds! We breathed a big sigh of relief that we had pet insurance.

His vet trips became so frequent that we were sure we would become known as the mad cat people who just walked around with our cat in a basket! We didn’t have a car back then and had to make all the trips on foot. With every trip came a slightly more demonic Bollo and in the end the vet wouldn’t even look at him without admitting him to the hospital and putting him under! Our excess kept going up so we again were thankful for insurance!

One day when Bollo had a minor problem (for him) I was just passing the vet surgery so popped in to ask some advice. It’s a massive surgery that they actually call a hospital; it even deals with horses and covers all of East London and Essex – I very rarely get recognised by the front of house staff. Bollo only had a sticky eye so I spoke to the nurse who was on the shop floor. I’d never met her before but I asked what I could get for my cat’s eyes?

‘Just bring him in’. She said.

‘Well… he doesn’t really like the vet’. I replied.

‘Yes, but best we see him if it’s an infection’. She went on…

‘Hmmm, he really, REALLY doesn’t like coming and he gets quite violent. He usually has to be sedated’. I told her.

She kind of backed away as if realising I was made of some sort of poison or something…

‘Are we talking about BOLLO by any chance’? she almost squealed whilst looking wide eyed and frightened…

We were sent away with drops and very clearly not required to ‘just bring him in for a check up’!

My cat is KNOWN! Not just with the vets either… There is a sweet little man who walks his dog past my house every day. He swerves and crosses to the other side now because Bollo launches himself at his dog and my neighbour is too frightened of him to feed him for us…

When we had Florence we worried that we couldn’t trust him but thankfully he gives and has continued to give all children a wide berth. But still we can’t cope with him all the time and Florence calls him Bollo The Beast! He’s too troublesome and while I love him… I don’t like him all that much anymore!

We started leaving him at my Mum’s for respite trips. He seems to like it there more. It’s in Norfolk and he gets to fully embrace the feral in him in the countryside! Poor old Bollo…

We do bring him home occasionally but he hasn’t been back for at least 9 months now… He loves it at my Mum’s and very rarely gets into trouble. We haven’t had an increase in our premiums this year so I think that speaks volumes…

My troubled cat Bollo!

My poor long suffering Mum!

He’s just as naughty for her during the night time and as she pretty much keeps him these days I do feel bad… We buy food for him and give him a squeeze (Jonny, not me) when we see him but we rather like him in Norfolk instead of London… This post is for a competition and if we win we will be able to spend £500 on him – hopefully this will go some way to letting him know he’s still ours and we still love him – despite everything! And despite his ‘holiday’ becoming rather permanent!

“This post is an entry into the Tots100/Swell UK competition.”