For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him. For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

Sixteen and three quarter years ago, a kitten with a high forehead and large ears, I spent much of my time finding sport in running up curtains and stationary people, and eating all kinds of fluff, and learning not to run into glass doors. I learned that grass is the best thing for inducing unpleasant but sometimes necessary vomiting, that bananas are noxious and that a life without pilchards is one only semi-lived.

At nearly seventeen I must weather the storm of hearing loss, which although does serve in eliminating otherwise ghastly episodes of inexplicable noise, unluckily means I startle easily when crept up on. It is owing to this that I have increasingly less patience with oafs.

Despite the hearing loss and a slight stiffness in the legs however, the years have left me with almost all of my faculties, and it is with these to help me that I have decided to begin a record of all I have learned as a cat among people (some of whom have been very kind and some a dreadful burden), to ensure some kind of legacy after I am gone. Perhaps my carefully chosen words will mean that one less hapless kitten falls into the pond, or one more achieves the golden routine of pilchards at dark time. If so, I will perhaps have done some good.

For cats and kittens of all origins, everywhere.

(The title of this is taken from a poem once read to me called 'For I will consider my cat Jeoffrey', which is quite interesting. I once lived with a cat by this name actually who was cross eyed, and whose attitude I couldn't abide.)