Manduline

Little Manduline, the youngest cat of the Hedges menagerie, turned 4 at the beginning of November. She is another one of my rescue cats. My dil and gd arrived here from visiting friends on a farm where Manduline, then still a kitten, was being terrorised by the hordes of farm dogs.

I kept this little cat in my guest room for 4 months during which time I could never touch her or approach her suddenly. I would enter the room, place her food on the floor and only once I'd closed the door and left her alone, would she emerge from under the wardrobe and quickly gobble her food.

It has taken another two years to win her confidence and still Manduline does not trust anyone other than my husband or me. She spends most of the day out in the garden and only comes in late at night. She cries under our bedroom window and as she is let in, she dives into the cookie bowl and fills her face! Then she finds a spot inside my wardrobe and falls asleep.

A strange union sprang up between Manduline and Tigger; the youngest cat and the oldest. As Tigger spends a lot of his time on my bed, he and Manduline have become the firmest of friends. It's nothing to see her and her old friend (Tigger is 13) playing catch up and down the passage. This interaction also keeps ole Tigger fit and healthy.

Manduline keeps her eyes on her toys

Another thing that Manduline loves to do, is to play with the many toys I have for her in the bedroom. She has had quite a few spiky mice which she tosses about and chews until there is only a mutilated head left over. We actually refer to this toy as "The Head"!

Above and below: Manduline plays with a selection of toy mice, aka "The Heads"

Neverending play

A mouse toy before it is mutilated by Manduline

Where is it now?

A selection of toys in various stages of their lives!

This is a far cry from the petrified little cat my granddaughter and her mum rescued from a farmyard full of vicious dogs in 2007

Ah, bliss to sleep with Uncle Tigger

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