He and his brother Suri were named after two little brothers who offered the Buddha a mud pie as a present. He was a very compassionate cat. He used to come and sit near me if I was crying (the only cat I've ever had that would do this).
He also had a very annoying (and painful) nose-biting habit. It was love. We had a real Romeo and Juliet moment when he disappeared once for five weeks. I put an ad in the paper two weeks running and the second week a lady rang me up to say there was a cat of his description (a muscular kind of Siamese) living in her paddock. She said that he would come out and sun himself every evening and she saw him 'expertly' catching rabbits. I left work at lunchtime that day (I was working at Oxford Botanic Gardens at the time) and went over to her place, only about 3 miles away from where we lived in Lillingstone Dayrell, Buckinghamshire. Couldn't find him - but was inspired by a sense of 'who he was' to return. Back at rabbiting time, just as the sun was beginning to go down. There was a very long beech hedge next to her house. I walked up and down next to it calling his name and - suddenly a little head popped out. We ran towards each other in soft focus, slow motion. One of our happiest moments together.
Nick remembers that when he and I first met back at 3 Seven Gardens, Musha used to sit on his head in bed - he liked it (the husband, that is, obviously the cat was delighted!) because it reminded him of home in Ireland where they had always had a lot of animals. Then moving with him to Ireland on the ferry; the ferry was cancelled and we had to drive another 90 mins to Pembroke to catch the ferry in the middle of the night; I was terrified that all four cats would die of the noise in the hold (or at least be permanently deafened) when I left them. Moving to France by car in 2008, he howled a good deal of the time; when we arrived in a small upstairs apartment with no garden, he made it clear that this was not his cup of tea. He paced and shouted every evening until he was released to the downstairs garden at 4 rue des Trois Rois. Finally, in 2011 we arrived here. Everyone approved - and he was just at the right age to appreciate all that hot stone on his little, elderly belly.
So many stories ... so much love.
This is a great opportunity to clean up the iris border where Musha is buried and plant some grasses with the irises: Stipa tenuissima, Stipa gigantea and Festuca amythestina. I grew them from seed last year and was wondering where to put them. Around the rose I have planted some bulbs of another old friend, Nerine bowdenii. I bought them the other week on impulse; I knew I wanted them, but was wondering about the best place. Musha has helped me find the right spot ... Thanks to Nick's wisdom, I can go down when it is sunny, have a glass of wine, and sniff Musha's rose.