In my role as a home-visitor for CP, I recently called in on a young man who wanted to adopt two adult cats. He told me that his partner had left him and he now was on his own.

Arriving at the house, I expressed my condolences but his reply was not what I had expected: “Oh I’m delighted to be shot of hr. But I miss her cats like crazy. They were great to come home to, what a welcome I always got from them. They were the best stress-reliever: warm fur on my knee, calm purring from the end of the bed when I couldn’t sleep. I had never lived with cats before but I now know I cannot ever live without them.”

My sentiments entirely. Needless to say, he got his two adult felines.

Christine Trickey Lydgate junior schoool, Sheffield