Don't look, Ethel!

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Wanting to describe the exact coat colour of a cream curly Selkirk Rex to Melbamae while we were chatting on IM, I visited the Selkirk Rex Cat Club site because I knew there was a very Bertie-esque chap pictured on there. (Of whom more later.)

What did the damned site do? Flashed me a message saying, "more kittens available", that's what. Now, I ask you: is that fair? I mean, shouldn't there be a facility whereby you can block the pages with the pictures of kittens if you know you haven't got the space to take another one? A method which doesn't rely on me exerting sufficient self-discipline to simply Look Away?


Still, at least I can now amuse myself by encouraging you, my faithful readers, to look as well. There are kittens a-plenty already this summer, and in an astonishing variety of coat colours and patterns.

Pam at Curlu and her boys and girls have obviously been particularly busy. Daisy and Mr Darcy have between them produced a litter of six, five of whom are colour-pointed. Harley, who is seal-pointed and has blue eyes (well, for now, at least - he's only little), would be welcome here any time. And check out Rhett and Gemstone's Iggy, who has clearly just been woken up by the nasty camera, and who hasn't had time to run a comb through his fur.



This isn't Harley. It's one of his sisters. Cute or what?

Anyway, kitten-coveting temporarily put on the back burner (where it never stays for very long), back to the Bertie-esque chap who features in the club's gallery of short-haired curly Selkirks. His name is Trueblu Anns Owainglyndwr ("Arthur", to his close acquaintances), and you can read more about him here.

I've seen his photograph dozens of times before but, for some reason, it didn't occur to me until today that Bertie's mum also comes from the Trueblu stable. (Er, or whatever the feline equivalent of "stable" is. "Hearth rug", possibly?)

Without digging Bertie's pedigree out from wherever it's lurking, I can't tell you whether he's a direct descendant of Arthur, but clearly there's some degree of commonality in their blood lines. Which would explain the spooky similarity in appearance. Here's Arthur:

There's a slight difference in the face shape but the coat colour is exactly the same. I know Bertie comes out looking like a bit of a ginger on some of my photographs, but he's not. He's Arthur-coloured. (Not, I hasten to add, that there's anything wrong with being ginger. Just that Bertie isn't.)

Arthur, evidently, was a bit of a star of stage and screen in his youth, and Lisa, from Trueblu, has uploaded some of his magazine appearances onto her website. This really could be Bertie. Here, it's more apparent that the shape of Arthur's face is a little different.

Ok, I realise I'm getting into territory which really isn't remotely interesting to anyone other than myself. So I'll stop now. But, hey! At least I gave you the link to the pictures of kittens!

The Editor

Several hours later...

I have found Bertie's pedigree. In the last place I looked for it, obviously. So that's been fun. And hardly painful at all.

But at least I now know why Bertie and Arthur look so similar. Arthur is Bertie's maternal grandfather. I know!! How exciting is that? I have tried holding Bertie up to the monitor screen and saying, "Look, Bert! That's your grandad! He used to be on the front covers of magazines!", but it doesn't seem to be impressing him very much.

Oh, and this pretty girly is Bertie's great-grandmamma, and Arthur's mum. There's another photo of her here.

I don't understand why I didn't spot that connection earlier, though. I mean, it's not as if I was on the Tramadol when I first got Bertie. It really shouldn't have been beyond the wit of woman to recognise the link. Good job I only wanted him as a pet: I'd clearly be hopeless in the world of breeding or showing!