I am pretty sure that I have spent the last year telling my children that they couldn’t have a pet. How is it then that we have ended up with a cat constantly perched on our front door step?

Not only does it sit there day and night, but it has now started jumping onto the windowsill and miaowing loudly every time it runs out of milk in the little container Rachel fills each day.

I have never been much of a cat person. I have an allergic reaction any time I get too close to one, and I don’t particularly like their nature, but watching Rachel sitting on the porch step in the rain, with Swissy cuddled up on her knee just melts my heart.

I sometimes listen to her at the window as she chats to the cat and tells it how lovely it is. I really have to put it on video and play it back when she is a teenager and going through her ‘hate the world’ phase. It will remind me of our wee sweet girl we had way back when….

Of course the cat hates Daniel. He chases it, sits on it, tries to catch its tail. It’s all out of love of course, but he just doesn’t understand that he is torturing the poor creature.

I am beginning to realise that it is only a matter of time before Swissy becomes officially ‘our cat’. I just hope the thing is house trained!