Dear Janit

I have a cat called Janit who, unbeknownst to her, is a little bit internet famous.

Since she was young I have been writing her letters of advice, and a few years ago I started the Dear Janit blog with my sister, EricaRead, who illustrates the letters. Janit is fifteen now and we have lived in Stoke Newingon, North London, since the day I fetched her up here when she was six weeks old, tucked inside my hoodie pocket, all the way on buses and trains from a farm in rural Essex.

She grew up fast, an Essex girl in Hackney. Her gregarious nature and good time girl attitude proved extremely popular with the local cats, so much so in fact that she went from one cat to seventeen cats before she had been on the earth eighteen months. Whilst I recognise this is not an ideal situation, and realise you would be forgiven for pointing the finger of irresponsibility in my direction, I would like to assure you, dear reader, that she was due to be spayed 3 times but at every occasion the vet found he was unable to perform the operation as she had managed to get herself pregnant between her last visit and the next appointment, thereby closing the window of opportunity.

What followed Janit's third litter was a long and very hot summer of lock-down, whereby no windows or doors could be opened in our flat until she had weaned her last kitten and managed to stay inside through the following six weeks without getting in the family way. That summer my poor flatmates and I spent a great deal of time sitting very still wearing nothing but our pants with our feet in bowls of cold water and our hands round Cornettos. Such was our resolve that with one minor escape incident - out of the tiny porthole window with a twenty foot drop the other side I might add:  

“Jan’s at the little window”

“Don’t worry, she’ll never jump that, it’s like a twenty foot... oh” 

She wasn’t injured in the fall but when I ran outside she was standing extremely still, belly close to the ground (as if she was still in the process of absorbing the impact) with a look of wild surprise in her eyes “what. just. happened. you guys? I just jumped out that window right? am I dead?” 

 ~ I didn’t even need to pick her up then, after a moment she realised that she was not dead and  scurried back inside the door and up the stairs to the flat, belly remaining close to the ground - the way cats run when a big friendly dog tries to lick them and they are trying to get under the sofa and out of the way. I fear this may have been the beginnings of her agoraphobia (there is, of course,  a letter about that on the site). 

During her life, Janit has been terribly thin, so much so that I feared she may have an eating disorder, and terribly fat, so much so that I had to stage an intervention between her and cat biscuits. Rotas had to be been drawn up, notes left, conversations between housemates, calls and texts to confirm that she has DEFINITELY been fed this morning so adapt as she was at convincing us all in turn that absolutely no one had given her breakfast.

I can’t remember exactly when I started writing letters to her and I don’t know how many there are still to be found in notebooks and on old bits of paper in drawers and boxes tidied up and tucked away. I do know there are a fair few early ones that have been missing for years, most likely in some shoebox or other with some unimportant receipts, old ‘spare’ envelopes where the sticky has gone. All in all it’s been a pointless exercise from the outset really, she has never ordained to take even the slightest bit of notice.

I am still writing them now and we put up a new illustrated letter every other Monday on subjects such as: herfascinationwithcarrierbags, herhabitofstaringatthewall and thedifferencebetweentoesandmice; there are also some recurring themes such as her acute laziness, her hunting skills (or lack of), places not to sit and her futile attempts at communication.

I would give up if only she wasn’t such a terrible dafty who really does need telling what’s what.

If you do visit the site please leave me a comment or share the site or a letter with your friends

Crispin lives in Hackney with his lovely wife and his daft cat, he writes for a number of blogs (some more sensible than others) you can find out all about them and other stuff through the links and buttons below:

http://crispinread.co.uk

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