Inspired by a chat over dim sum and pu-erh tea with Alex Smith and her recent Three Cats blog post, as well as an exchange of cat photographs on twitter with Katherine Stansfield whose four Cats seem as literary as our Feline Family, I decided to share a few stories and photographs here with you.


André and I don’t want to remember the ordinary boring life we led before Anya and Mozart (named after Anna Netrebko and Amadeus – they were born in the Mozart year) arrived on a KLM flight from Austria in 2006. It was quite a dramatic occasion, because their documents got lost along the way and their trip was postponed by 24 anxious hours. However, at last we received the news that they were safely on their way and we could pick them up from the airport. The plane landed, all the passengers – human and non-human – deboarded and we were told that we would get ‘our dog’ in a few minutes.
‘But we are expecting two cats,’ we protested with hearts in our throats.
The man glanced at the documents in his hands, ‘Yeah, right.’
Minutes passed, we remembered the lost documents and began to prepare ourselves for the Rottweiler travelling on Mozart’s pet passport while he and Anya were on their way to Australia for all we knew.
The airport official returned empty-handed, but assured us that ‘our dog’ was on his way.
‘You mean our TWO CATS!’ we shouted, but he was gone again.
At last, he returned with a cage containing two very vocal Kitties we recognised. Relief, relief!
We had read all the available cat books and prepared the house for their welcome, stressing about getting it all right, but Anya and Mozart were completely blasé about the entire trip to the other side of the world. The moment we arrived home, we let them out of the cage and stood around helplessly, watching for any signs of distress. They stretched, looked around, located the litter box, did their business, saw the food and the water, helped themselves, sniffed a bit around, and literally twenty minutes later were both stretched out on our bed, looking up as if to say, ‘So, when are you coming to bed?’

Our lives changed that day. They became a million times better!

To lose Anya to a speeding car a few months later was shattering, for all three of us, worst for Mozart of course, but we all didn’t know how to deal with the loss. I still see her strolling through the house, waving her gorgeous bushy tale as if the world belonged to her. It did. We miss her terribly.

After the tragedy, friends recommended a kitten. That is how Antonia Salieri came into our lives in 2007. Born in a sewage pipe, she was a bit of a rough diamond at first, and so tiny that she constantly got lost under Mozart’s feet when he tried to play with her. Eventually, out of desperation, I presume, not knowing how to engage her otherwise, he danced on the scratching pole for her, bum and tail high in the air like a real pro. None of us will ever forget the performance, least of all the flabbergasted Salieri. Once she recovered from the shock, they settled into a co-habitation of mutual respect. Salieri quickly realised that the circumstances of her birth shouldn’t stand in her way of behaving like royalty and she earned herself the nickname Principessa from an Italian visitor to the Brink household. She only eats her food if served on the kitchen table (Royal Albert plates), takes up half of my half of the bed (she doesn’t care much for my back problems), and screams at me if I misunderstand ‘Catlise’, the most important language for any human to understand. Any cuddles happen only and entirely on her terms when she is ready for them.





Mozart is our wanderer and partly adopted the neighbours as his other family. He is very wise, speaks Polish, German, English, Afrikaans, and Catlise fluently, understands many more languages and loves David Attenborough bird documentaries.


We never thought of another cat to join the household, but when Michela Glinka was placed in my hands with a red bow around her neck and we were told that she desperately needed a home, we had no choice. She arrived in 2008 with a tummy problem and kept us awake the whole first night. Between trying to somehow help her and changing our bed sheets for the third time, I was ready to give her back, but when we eventually all fell asleep in the morning and woke up together, I knew she was here to stay. She is now sleeping on my chaise longue in one of her nests.


Glinka is the ultimate nest-builder, fresh laundry is best, but any blankets or quilts will do. We also call her our birdie-cat because she chirps like a little bird. The moment I set foot out of the bed in the morning, she will be running through the house, chirping along the way to welcome me into the day. We make coffee together and then return to bed where she will sit on my chest (as close to my face as possible), have rusk crumbs, and read with me or go over to André to check whether his book is more interesting. Most of my writing happens with her in my lap or somewhere in the room.


Glinka is most famous in the literary circles around the world as the cat who inspired Kleinkat in André’s Philida (2012), recently also published in Taiwan (I love the cats on the different covers).
From the acknowledgements of my Invisible Others: “My furry family, Glinka, Salieri and Mozart, true experts at life, keep trying to teach me how to make the most of it; I hope they will succeed one day.”