Galadriel: an introduction.

Galadriel arrived next door with her owner, Adam, in early 2004, in the days when Tanis still walked the Earth. She was a very sociable and confident cat, who liked to wander wherever she liked to wander. This led her inevitably into Tanis’ territory, and sparks were set to fly. But not really. Tanis, you see, was always more interested in finding a nice patch of sun to sit in than enforcing the borders of his territory, so he played it cool, as though she was only there because he allowed her to be there. He had his neighbourhood reputation to think of.


As time passed they eventually became good porch buddies. We’d often come out to find the two of them sitting there together, quite contentedly watching the world go by, quite happy to be in each other’s space. Tanis would occasionally make a show of trying to get tough with this interloper, but it never escalated past playful.

Galadriel as a name was always a mouthful, so most settled on the simpler, ‘Glady’. When first encountering Galadriel, Shar, our house-mate at the time, thought her name was ‘Gradual’, which seemed a nice Australian-style pronunciation, so that got a bit of use too.

After Tanis’ death and the birth of her three boys, Galadriel’s temperament changed. As is, I believe, the way with cats, the mother rejects her offspring once they reach a certain age, so as to avoid any unpleasant familial mating unpleasantness. She didn’t become hostile towards just her offspring though; the humans she’d previously had contact with were also hissed at and mostly avoided. It even got to the point where she practically packed up and moved across the street! She’d laze in the neighbours’ gardens and sleep on their porches, and only rarely come ‘home’.

On one day, Kate and I happened to go over to one of the houses, for an unrelated reason, and got into conversation with the residents. As we chatted at their door, the topic of Galadriel actually came up and, as if on queue, she suddenly appeared in their hallway from out of a side room. She looked quite at home, and even had this, “That’s enough talking about me,” look to her. The owners seemed a little embarrassed, but said she just wouldn’t leave! I guess at least she was happy.