This is the story about our three legged pirate cat called Zephyr.

Zephyr was my dads cat first, he adopted the house we lived in as his own. First he claimed the garden despite dad taking pot shots with his air riffle to try and scare the feline away. That didn’t work and the cat carried on endearing us with its charms, curious and downright nosy demeanour.

Wherever dad was so was Zephyr; when dad was clearing the guttering, Zephyr was flicking water at him. He jumped through my window one Christmas when I was wrapping pressies and scared the bejeezus out of me.

It should have dawned on us then that this cat should have been called pickle! Needless to say after putting on a charm offensive one sunny morning when we were taking breakfast in the garden, he became our cat.

I remember in particular his final assault was on dad, Zephyr jumped up on his lap and curled his fluffy tail round dads face. Jumped down and sauntered off towards the door into the house, with a final pause to look over his shoulder at my dad, to which dad said with a wry smile “go on then”. And that was it, Zephyr became our cat.

Zephyr is a long haired black moggy, with delutions that perhaps he is a Maine Coon or has it in him. He’s a “pretty” creature which partly explains why Zephyr for the first 4 years of his life with us was known as a she…