In another life, I might have been a dog person. If the street I grew up on had been populated with more dogs, perhaps, or if I'd just been around them when I was little. But the little ones that barked a lot scared me, and I discovered I was allergic to the bigger, hairier ones. Instead, I grew up on a street where three-quarters of our neighbours had at least one cat. We weren't one of those households, but we made an awful lot of feline friends all the same.

First there was Max, who would wait on our front doorstep for us to come home from school every day. He loved the attention, and didn't mind that we were little and would sometimes pull his tail. He never hissed or scratched, probably because he was too old to care. When he finally passed on - in our back yard, where our next-door neighbour had to rescue him - he was twenty years old.

Jesse liked to eat. He'd sneak into our house when we weren't looking and sit at the refrigerator expectantly, even though he knew full well he had another home to go to. After Max passed on, our neighbour would happily feed Jess too, and pretty soon he got really fat.

Then there was my dearly departed Puddy, my bestest fuzzy friend. Once he knew he had friends across the street from him that he could visit whenever he wanted, he'd howl like a werewolf at the moon to be let in. He was a grumpy old thing, mostly because of the arthritis in his back legs, but he'd sit on my lap and listen to me while I talked to him, occasionally meowing advice at me. He was very loyal. When our neighbours discovered he had cancer and had to put him down because of his age (Pud was eighteen, only a few months younger than me), I cried all evening.

When new neighbours moved in next door to where Puddy used to live, one of their rescue cats, Mima, started visiting us. She had an odd quirk - because she hadn't been weaned properly as a kitten, she would constantly knead with her paws. She'd knead the air, the floor, our laps, anything. I called her Mima-rin after an anime character. We never did find out what happened to her after she disappeared, but we think she must have gone away to die. Poor Mima.

When Pook and I moved into our flat, we inherited yet another cat companion. Our landlord could only take one of his cats with him to his new apartment, so he left Norman with some friends of his round the corner from us. But Norm liked to make sure his old territory was in good hands, so he'd come and visit us every day. He's like Max - very affectionate, and black all over. Norm hasn't come to visit in a while, but last time we saw him, he'd been in a fight and was missing some fur from his head. Hope he's okay.

We aren't sure what our current adoption's name is, but we call her Plum. She must be getting fed somewhere - she's never hungry although we can't afford to feed her - but we don't know where she lives. The first time she came to visit, she did exactly what she does every day now - came through our French doors, ran straight through the living room into my bedroom, and fell asleep on my bed. I wondered if maybe she was the reincarnation of Puddy - she's tabby on top and white underneath like him, and she likes sleeping on my bed, just like Pud used to. It took Plum a while to get used to us - at first she was nervous and hissed a lot, but now she's as sweet as sugar. She likes being tickled under her chin, and sleeping on the furry blanket I got for Christmas.

When I've got a decent job, I'll adopt a cat of my own, providing Plum doesn't mind. I like cats for their independence, in comparison to dogs - they can look after themselves, but they always come back for some affection too. Doggies are sweet in their way, but they like being told what to do, whereas you can't tell a cat to do squat.

Besides, whoever heard of a loldog?