Gizzie died in May, 2008. We'd had her for 19 years, having been given her as a rescue cat when she was far too young to leave her mother (She was about six weeks old). I struggle to write this because Gizzie was part of my life for every second of those 19 years.

As an indoor cat, Gizzie spent her days following me around the house and her nights sleeping on my bed. I miss her terribly.

We had a call from a friend called Colleen who had rescued a cat who had just given birth to kittens in a dark cupboard under the stairs of a house. The owners didn't want the kittens and were intent on 'disposing' of them as quickly as possible and by whatever means presented itself. Colleen couldn't allow that, so she ended up with mother and kittens.

We were asked to take a kitten and Gizzie was the one I picked out. Boy did I pick a good one! The first night we 'lost' her. In the early hours of the night I went to check on her in the box in my bedroom and she'd disappeared. I turned over the whole bedroom trying to find her and eventually found her fast asleep under a bureau - how should could have slept through the amount of noise I'd been creating, I cannot guess.

Then there was the eating issue. Being so young she wasn't really weaned off her mother, so feeding was likely to be an issue. As it was, she refused to eat anything including milk. After a coupe of days we ended up at the vets looking for help to get her to eat, especially as she was so young and in need of food.

We left the vet with a syringe. Using that, we were able to get her to take milk, but she still refused the mashed up kitten food we offered. Not sure how we arrived at the solution, but we found that she would, however, eat chopped up chicken roll. No problem with that!

Chicken roll may have been a mistake. She wouldn't go near cat food after that. Over the years we tried cat food, but she stuck with a cooked meat diet. When she tired of chicken roll, she switched to turkey. When she tired of turkey, it was the best beef. When she tired of beef, it was back to the chicken. Do you have any idea how idiotic you feel going round Tesco, bulk buying Bernard Matthews chicken roll for the cat!

She also liked prawns - just as Fred had.

When we had Gizzie, I was working from home - from my bedroom to be more exact. I was all set-up, nice computer table and comfortable office chair. The cat took one look at this set-up and immediately commandeered the chair! So while I stood and kneeled in front of the PC, she say comfortably, wrapped in a blanket, on the chair. I ended up with a stool... but she was a kitten and I couldn't bring myself to turn her off.

Circumstances were that I had to go out to work again and she took over the bed instead. Of a night she took over the bottom right corner and I got what was left. In the day, she had the top left - basically, my bed was covered with the cats' blankets and I was allowed to sit in any spare gaps she left me.

Eventually, I changed jobs again and ended up working from home again. She took a dislike to PCs and showed it by leaving the room whenever I turned one on, so at least I got to sit on the chair, even if I did feel like a heel.

As she got older, she got used to the fact that I needed to work and that meant the PC so she returned to the bed during the day.

I could go on like this for a long time, but I'm sure you have no interest in my memories.

Last few years, she started to show her age. It became obvious that she was struggling to jump on the bed so, naturally, I bought her a box - that went down well once she worked out what it was for! Sadly, her back legs were weak and eventually, the box wasn't helping as much as it used to. So I did what you would expect - I had steps custom made for her - well you have to don't you.

For the last 12 months she was constantly at my side. During the day she came in to my home office and turned me off the chair (so I was back to sitting on a stool) and during the evening she was back to the bedroom and sitting on my chair. I was allowed to sit on the bed.

Towards the end of April, she started having problems with eating and on May 4, 2008 was finally put to sleep by the vets after diagnosing severe liver problems. She was my best friend for 19 years and I'm lost without her.

Maisie came to us as a stray. Well, that's what we thought anyway.

This was back in the day when we didn't have a patio window but had ordinary windows with a window sill. One day we were looking out through the windows and saw this tabby head looking in at us. Kind of floating in space.

Being animal lovers anyway, we went to the window to get a better look and see if the cat was friendly or not - she dived off the stool and ran! Maybe no so friendly after all.

A little later, she popped up again and, over a period of weeks, we progressed to the point where she was happily strolling in and out of the house through the window (good job it was summer).

As a rule, she was ravenous, so we came to the conclusion that she was a stray and in need of a good home with an unlimited supply of food. So, we adopted her and she adopted us. And, somewhere along the way, I lost the bottom corner of my bed.

Turned out later that she actually belonged to some people just down the road from us, not that they were interested in getting her back. Seems their kids weren't interested in the cat other than as a play thing and had been abusing her - which explains why she legged it to another home. Apparently, the last straw was when they 'trimmed' her whiskers - never a good idea.

Fair to say, she wasn't the most friendly of cats and was fiercely independent, but we loved her for what she was and we got a lot of love in return.

Sadly, she developed mouth ulcers and had to be put to sleep when she couldn't eat any more. We only had about five years with her, but I think she enjoyed that time to the full.