Sometimes things are meant to be...
- Ellie Derbyshire
- Sep 14, 2018
- 3 min read

Well it's been a while since my last blog as I've been very busy. It's no mean feat to run a business whilst balancing the demands of the kids on their school holidays and just to make things a little bit more spicy we acquired an unexpected addition over the summer break!
Living near an array of farms, we have in our time here seen the odd feral cat, keeping a check on the mice population, in the many outbuildings and barns dotting the local countryside. But never had we seen one as little, as adorable, as the bundle of fluff now sitting on my knee as I write this blog...
We'd just been into town and en-route had seen a stunning pale coloured cat. I turned to my husband and exclaimed "I've always wanted a grey cat" and he replied "I'm sure we'll find one one day" (we already have 2 and my husbands allergic, but he humours me!!) On the way back and on a completely different road, he suddenly slammed on his brakes and exclaimed "there's a tiny grey kitten in the verge". Sure enough, there was the tiniest bundle of fluff I had ever seen. How he spotted it I'll never know. We stopped the car and jumped out. After a thorough scout of the area, it was obvious this tiny kitten was all alone, no mum, no siblings. It was clearly not used to humans, as it evaded our every attempt to catch it.
We thought it was a lost cause, forced to give up we left it there. As we drove home all I could think about was the petrified little bundle, clearly too young to be away from mum, getting swooped up by a buzzard or hit by a car. I couldn't just give up. I turned to my husband and with my best pleading eyes said "let's give it one more go, just five minutes if it's not there we'll leave it" With rolled eyes and a bit of a sigh he agreed... after all it was his fault in the first place... if he'd keep quiet I'd have never know it existed, so he just couldn't argue! We weren't far from home so we carried on and collected some supplies in order to increase our chances of catching it. Armed with some tempting treats and my sons large fishing net we headed back. I honestly thought there was no way this little one would still be there but as we approached the spot there it was, on the opposite side of the road. Jumping out of the car I tried tempting it across with treats, to no avail... so out came the net. The first swoop my husband took looked spot on, but the kitten was so tiny it had sunk down into the long grass and scarpered backwards. So my husband gave chase and the second swoop resulted in success, much to the kitten's dismay.
Cradling the little bundle on the way home, it looked petrified, skinny and had some rather gross slime around it's mouth (I'm sure it had been surviving on slugs) Once home we popped it in a box and offered it some food that it promptly gobbled up!
For the first 24hrs it was terrified of us, shaking and cowering away, but after just one day it started to trust me (not my husband however... but to be fair he had ran at it with a net above his head!) I managed to inspect it closely enough to see we had a girl and that she was covered in ticks. We carefully removed them one by one, at this point we considered calling her Tick but we thought it might remind us of her rather grim beginnings, so we opted for Gigi seeing as we had found her near Betws GG. After a couple of visits to the vets for tick treatment/worming syrup suitable for such a little mite and some careful milk and water mixing to combat her dehydration we finally have a healthy, perky and extremely mischievous new member of our family. She really is an utter distraction, but an adorable one and I think sometimes these things are meant to be. Not sure I fully believe in fate but that day just seems to have been the most bizarre coincidence, although some people who know me have a conspiracy theory that I planted her there... if only I was that cunning!

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