Maude is like the cat version of a tortise-shell wombat.

She has stumpy little legs and a fat little body. She only ever moves slowly. Very slowly.

She is a pint-sized version of a much larger cat. Her attitude expands out of her chubby little body and takes over any space in which she inhabits.

When she meows her whole head moves. A very definite meow.

And she is a puncher. Not a slapper or a whacker but a puncher.

She frequently punches Mitzy (her best friend) at meal time.

It's actually kind of funny to watch. As I am putting the food out she muscles in and then belts Mitzy to the face. It's quite uncatlike in a very catty sort of way. Quite forceful. And rather bitchy if you ask me.

Quite unnecessary.

I don’t know why she feels the need to resort to such violence. Thirty seconds more and she would have her own feed bowl full to the brim.

I certainly didn’t teach her this. And poor Mitzy, a lover not a fighter. Perpetually surprised to receive a blow to the cheek whilst simply sitting patiently waiting for dinner.

Maude came to me as a stray. She had turned up at a friend of a friend’s home. That person already had about 5 cats (all in rather poor condition from what I could see!). They were relegated to the back porch area. Outside. Outside cats.

Maude, when I arrived for a look-see, was on the bed in the main room. She was thin and scraggly looking. Very sad little face. They said that refused to stay outside and so they let her in.

Of course I took her then and there. Into the catbox and home to paradise. She didn’t realise it at the time but soon would see that she had entered a new and wondrous phase of life.

When I got her back to the farmhouse she exited the catbox reluctantly and jumped up onto a dining room chair. And there she remained for two days.

She was full of worms and covered in fleas.

I have no idea what she had experienced but she was traumatised (like so many of these poor strays). She would not sit on a lap nor be held. Not for anything. She meowed desperately to be left alone. And she really didn’t want to go outside.

I started her therapy immediately.

She was to endure a firm ‘holding’ every day, increasing to multiple firm ‘holdings’ per day. Each session I held her until she softened and stopped fighting and then I let her down.

I think it took about six months for it to sink in that she was loved. That it was okay to be held and to ‘hold’ (sit on a lap). She gradually developed affection for me. And I guess trust.

We have never looked back.

I wrote in one of my earlier blogs that Homer (cat) had deserted my bed at night (probably as payback for his incarceration - he deserved it!). After nine years of snuggling me each night he pointed his little cat bum at me and huffed off onto a couch downstairs.

I am happy to announce that Maude has taken his spot. These nights, when I go to bed, she is already there. A little meow greets me as I alight the stairs and there she is.

A sweet little tubby wombatty cat.