Absolutely Terminally Wellington

There is a storm brewing in Auckland...I have a blended family, a blended cat family. For a whole raft of legacy reasons I’ve ended up playing den-mother to four cats, which is odd really because I’m not that much of a fan.

Lovely ‘Larry’ the strident striped Bengal, ‘Golly’ the black as soot moggy, ‘Pepper’ our outdoor cat and ‘Wellington’, a scrawny chocolate Burmese, call my house home. 

By their very nature cats are hierarchical, territorial and not team players. Trying to wrestle some kind of order with these four has been no mean feat, but we’ve brokered an uneasy truce through staggered feeding times and strategic division of affection, so currently all is peaceful on the cat front.

Well it was until Saturday when Wellington, after a long battle with diabetes, went and died. Since then all hell has broken loose. As nature abhors a vacuum, the change in cat dynamic has resulted in fur flying and all out war, as the remaining three jostle for position in the new cat order.

This was an unexpected response after the loss of a beloved pet, and one that has left the humans in my house sleepless in the din. But change it appears, even the most subtle, can have unforeseen consequences.

The weekend not only saw the demise of our cat, but the long awaited reveal of the blueprint for the supercity. There were no surprises, the new mayor of Auckland will get wide ranging powers and have a dedicated budget to lead the new council which will have 20 to 30 boards under it, with control of funding for community initiatives and local decision making powers.

But big question is; how much fur will fly before Auckland gets its new top-cat?

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Politics, PR Matters, Supercity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Absolutely Terminally Wellington”

  1. Ashley Says:
    September 8th, 2009 at 10:00 am

    My commiserations re Wellington. But it confirms to me that two is the ideal number for a cat household, then the hierarchy gets sorted once, and that’s it (barring episodes of illness, when No 2 senses that No 1 is not up to his usual bossiness and therefore takes advantage in a shocking way – but such aberrations are always temporary and disappear once good health returns). I have, at times, been tempted to stretch to three, but have always resisted, not least because introducing a new “companion” to two gumpy old men (in cat terms, anyway) would simply be asking for too much trouble!

  2. Juha Says:
    September 8th, 2009 at 11:33 am
  3. Erica Says:
    September 8th, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    Thanks for your commiserations Ashley – Wellington will certainly be missed! But what about the super mayoralty? Do you think perhaps there will be a new entrant to put a cat amongst the pigeons?

  4. Ashley Says:
    September 9th, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    It’s very early days – I would not be in the least surprised if several parties raised their paws.