My pet subject

I’d looked forward to this for 20 years.

Pathetic, I know, but having grown up surrounded by cats I’d always promised myself I’d get my own as soon as circumstances allowed.

So, having recently moved to a house on a sufficiently quiet road, acquiring two kittens was a top priority.

Enter Nutmeg and Parsley, two gorgeous six-week-old tabbies from a farm in Sussex. The fun, I figured, would start here. Everything would be simple. How wrong I was.

The sneezing started before they were even out of the box. I’m no animal health expert, but I knew that sneezing wasn’t good. It continued, prompting our first visit to the vets. He gave them a course of antibiotics and me a bill for £60.

I asked nervously if it was the dreaded cat flu. The vet wasn’t sure. Cat flu, apparently, is notoriously complex. It can be fatal, although it’s often far less serious. I came away relatively optimistic.

Nutmeg and Parsley, meanwhile, had decided to stop eating. The vet recommended chicken or white fish. Not being the most organised person, I ended up buying this mostly from the local M&S Simply Food.

Soon, my two charges were eating better than me. They obviously appreciate traceability. They weren’t insistent on organic yet – but I feared it wouldn’t be long.

Where was this going to end, I wondered? Lemon-glazed chicken with rice? Seared seabass on a bed of asparagus?

Food smells filled the house at all hours. The smell of chicken roasting at 5.30am was particularly unappealing. But we had no choice: attempts to introduce them to normal kitten food sparked upset stomachs.

The cats I remember from childhood ate anything and were grateful. They were robust, aggressive lovable sorts that survived on a diet of wild birds, leftover dog food and pear drops. They’d regularly get run over and come back for more.

And it wasn’t as if all this TLC cured Nutmeg and Parsley. They came off antibiotics and guess what? They went downhill. Their appetites shrank and they got diarrhoea. They carried on sneezing. Another visit to the vets, another course of antibiotics. Another £70.

This time it was a different type of tablet, which proved impossible to get down them. After trying various methods (and lots of scratched hands) we concluded the only way was to carefully cube chicken, skewer holes in the lumps, insert the carefully-fragmented tablet and backfill the hole with Felix jelly. It was like keyhole surgery. It also took half an hour a day. This couldn’t go on: my career was beginning to suffer.

And this was before factoring-in the time to cook the chicken. And to apply the eye drops. And do the worming.

Meanwhile the kittens went through phases: they would either eat so much they swelled up like little beach balls, or refuse to touch their food despite hours of gentle encouragement.

Both types of behaviour worried me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t expecting pets to need round-the-clock care. I’ll be honest: once or twice I wished I’d never laid eyes on the wretched things.

And then poor Nutmeg took a real turn for the worse. I was convinced she was at death’s door. Hello Mr Relf, the vet said, reassuringly, smiling (I couldn’t help think a little too pleased to see me).

The upshot was an overnight stay at the surgery (for the cats, not me) so they could keep them under supervision. By the end of their ‘24-hour hospitalisation’ the kittens had perked up no end and I had taken a decided turn for the worse having been presented with a bill for £160.

The suggestion came at this stage that it could be cat chlamydia –something that shocked me, to say the least. Not my girls, surely! A few minutes trawling the internet, however, revealed that this is more like a form of conjunctivitis in cats than the human equivalent.

Cue more antibiotics, more eye drops and more tablets. They were also put on a diet of special kitten food, which looked like pate.

They went from strength to strength. The sneezing got less frequent. They grew.

Though their diarrhoea had ended, I watched every bowel moment with fascination. I never thought I’d take so much interest in the contents of a littler tray. The emergence of a solid stool can still prompt a cheer in our household.

By the time we’d had them a month they’d cost £500 - including a few toys and treats (OK, quite a few toys and treats).

This was before their vaccinations and spaying. Friends say I’m mad - that I could have spent the money on a holiday. But they’re missing the point.

Pets are such good company. They help you relax and are endlessly entertaining. A cat in the room is like a real fire: you can pass hours simply watching it.

As to whether Nutmeg and Parsley were grateful for all this care and attention? No, not a bit of it. They’re full of disdain and contempt for me, they’ve scratched me to pieces, bitten me and already made inroads into the furniture: climbing curtains and pulling the sofa apart. Just how cats should be, in fact.

At their last visit to the vet (purely routine, thankfully) Parsley gave him a quick, firm little bite. That’s my girl, I thought. That one’s for my credit card bill.