My friend Jess, from the Tasmanian Pagan Alliance, is awesome. She has just fostered six Turkish Van cats, who were kept in horrific conditions. In her words, “they ha[d] been forgotten – skin and bones, with no food, litter trays, beds or toys, their original owner no longer in their lives, left with someone who doesn’t have the time or want to care for them properly.”

She has taken them all under her wing, and is trying to get them all back to good health. These cats are beautiful, purebred cats. I cannot understand how anyone could just leave them behind. I believe three of them are desexed, so the other three need to also be desexed, and all will need vaccinations, microchipping and possibly further tests.

I have put my hand up to adopt one. I know we shouldn’t, we already have a cat, blah blah blah. But as soon as I heard that Jess had rescued these beautiful cats, I couldn’t say no.

We have one on hold for us – her name is Thorn (all the cats were named after tree species – Apple, Cherry, Willow and Ash – Luna is the only one who isn’t named after a tree!) and she’s magnificent. She’s a bit of a runt, which I love, and we won’t be bringing her home for a while, but when Jess gets them all back up to good health, we’ll be adopting her. We’re thinking about giving her a different name – all our pets have been named after musicians or songs (Layla, Hendrix), so we’re thinking Lennox (maybe too close to Hendrix?) or Quattro. We’ll see what happens when her personality starts shining though.

Here’s a picture of the beauty that is Thorn: