Daisy DooYou might not think cats, American country singer Kinky Friedman and breast feeding have much in common, but you’d be surprised. Kinky once said: “Cats are lovers of the status quo. They don’t like anything that might represent change. They hate marriages, divorces, moving days, painters, plumbers, TV repairmen and just about everything else.”

And giving up breast feeding.

We have two cats. Eddie, three, who spends most of BB’s waking hours out of sight, stealing out from his hiding place when she is napping and after she’s gone to bed to assert his presence, and Daisy Doo, 18 months. Poor little Daisy Doo.

Daisy (above) was just five weeks old when she was found dumped, shaking and mewing, in the New Forest by a dog walker. Her brother was discovered 150 yards away, in a similar state. The pair were promptly scooped up and taken to the nearest vet by said dog walker, where the little boy was rehomed almost immediately, leaving poor Daisy Doo alone and unloved. When my mother-in-law happened upon the sorry tale.

Fifty miles away in Surrey, where we were living at the time with five week old BB, Misery Guts and I were mourning the loss of Eddie’s sister, who had come to a sudden and messy end under the wheels of a car, breaking the spell of blissful contentment that came with BB’s birth.

In the fug of new motherhood, hormones raging and mammaries in overdrive, there was only one thing for it: Daisy had to be ours. The very next day she arrived on a train from Southampton, a tiny scrap of a thing with the bushiest eye brows you’ve ever seen.

Daisy took an instant shine to BB. Exactly the same age, wherever BB was, you could guarantee Daisy would be by her side.

They slept together (before you send round a lynch mob, only in the day time – BB had a cat net on her moses basket at night)

Daisy Doo 2

Played together…

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And ate together…

Daisy Doo 5

For the last 18 months, when I settle down to give BB her bedtime feed, Daisy creeps onto BB’s lap and settles down too. This routine is repeated every night without fail, and I can’t help but wonder what effect giving up breast feeding BB will have on her.

I suspect Kinky’s right: she’s not going to like it. And to be quite honest, neither is BB and neither am I…