Well! It seems Bambino Bobble Wilson has quite a fan club! I thought, then, with lack of anything more interesting to write about today (‘Rude!’ says Bambino) I’d put the spotlight on him, because there is nothing he likes being than Centre of Attention, Life and The Universe As We Know It, and Possibly Beyond.
Here we go! For all you Bambino fans - enough information to enter Mastermind and win if you really haven’t anything better to do with your lives.
Bambino Bobble Wilson, the kitten, was found wandering the streets of Stoke-on-Trent. He was brought into Andy the Vet’s hospital where Andy hid him from me for two whole weeks before deciding, with a deep sigh I suspect, that he really ought to bring the kitten home to live with us. And so the little black kitten, aged 10 weeks or thereabouts, came home to Damson Cottage at some point in July 2017.
Because every cat needs a birthday, and because the kitten immediately started strutting around the house like Dark Lord of the Universe, his date of birth was settled on 4th May - ‘May the Forth (Force) Be With You’ - for those who are underwhelmed by the Star Wars franchise of films. It is ironic he has grown into a Darth Vader lookalike. Do cats grow to look like their birthday?
And then to a name. A lot of thought was put into his name, so much so that three were settled upon from which to select. My favourite TV programme at the time was ‘Friday Night Dinner.’ This is just as well because my current favourite programme is ‘Ghosts’ and if we got a kitten NOW it would be called either Robin the Caveman or Lady Fanny. Anyway, in ‘Friday Night Dinner’ the father calls his grown sons ‘bambinos’. And the mother refers to one of her sons by his childhood nickname, which is Bobble. And the best character in the programme, called Jim, had a bewildered looking German Shepherd dog called Wilson. I couldn’t choose between the three and that is why the kitten came to be called Bambino Bobble Wilson. It’s on his microchip and medical records and everything!
Names change and grow, of course. Sometimes I call him Bambino, sometimes Bobs, sometimes Sausage, and sometimes You Bloody Annoying Sod. Or Oi! Stop That!
Flora Bijou Mybug wasn’t keen. She completely forgot how she used to annoy Phoebe Cat when she was a kitten and showed no empathy to the abandoned waif. Bambino took up gardening in order to ingratiate himself with her.
The love between them has always been a bit one sided. He adores her with all his heart. She sometimes deigns to get him in a headlock and give him a good wash but mostly she tolerates him, then punches him in the face when she’s had enough of his adoration. Here they are when he was still smaller. I think she was trying to crush him between herself and and sofa end at this point. Crush him to death.
And then he grew! When you get a kitten of unknown heritage, you never really know how they are going to turn out. Flora is quite a large cat at 4.7kg. Bambino is SOMETHING ELSE! He isn’t fat. He is Trojan. He is like Conan the Barbarian, Rocky Bilbao, that Mammoth in ‘Ice Age’ whose name escapes me. There is A LOT of fur on this cat. Like triple layers. He is the Woolly Mammoth of Cats. I reckon there’s a bit of Maine Coon or Forest Cat in there somewhere. Certainly a bit of lion. And a boulder. He used to fit comfortably in this large Victorian wash basin...
Not any more! He’d spill over the edges! He would obscure the entire bowl! He has grown into a truly magnificent cat of substantial proportions. A heffalump.
His hobbies include sitting in boxes, sitting in bags, bird watching, hiding-under-beds-and-jumping-out-at-passing-feet, trying to sit on my too small lap and giving me looks about why it is too small, dangling over Andy’s shoulder, head bumping, demanding attention, sitting on iPads, thinking my ballet slippers are snakes and jumping in alarm whenever he sees them, stealing anything that is light enough to be stolen and isn’t pinned down, digging under rugs and sofas, kicking things out of the way, making a HUGE amount of noise to announce his presence, and trying to kill people on the stairs. He will be four years old in a couple of months. How he’s made it this far is beyond me.
I’ll leave you with a few more photos of Bambino Bobble Wilson in all his adult magnificence. The pictures say it all really.
P.S I’m more than happy to lend him out as weight lifting resource.
P.P.S The mammoth in ‘Ice Age’ is called Manny. I’ve just remember! Stupid name for a mammoth though, eh Bambino?
P.P.P.S Bambino says, ‘Hello Uncle Philip!’ (Secretly, he is chuffed to be the only cat to win my brother around to the presence of cats.)
P.P.P.P.S Bambino has asked me to remind you that he is mostly fur. If he was shaved, he’d be the size of a gerbil. Apparently.
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KJ