Bobbie and Billie

Finally, there are names for the new cats.

It has not been without some pressure, given our previous cats were called Boy Kitty and Girl Kitty, and that our next cat was called New Kitty.

It was thus, as you can imagine, with great trepidation that we adopted the two new cats. 

Not for us the worries about cat flu and whether they'd bring half-dead birds or, heaven forbid, a weta into the house, (see here for a picture of the Weta, at your peril), no, not at all.

The pressure was - what are they going to be named? What if we can't even think of a name? Are they doomed to be Newer Kitty and Newist Kitty?

Billie or Bobbie

The horrendous stress, my friends, cannot be underestimated.

At work a colleague asked 'Have you named them, yet?' 

It had only been a week. Try asking me that in a year.

One of the boys said if he had cats, they'd be called Tim Whatley and Bob Sacamano, characters in Seinfeld. I was telling a friend this and she said, 'You could always name one of the cats Bobbie'.

Bobbie... That sounded like a real possibility. Bobbie for a girl cat. I'm partial to the unisex (can we still say unisex?) names. I have been Jo all my life and, after all, I could spell it Joe if I wanted. I'm not fussed. People can spell it like that if they wish, they can add add the extra 'e', I don't care.

Then she, my friend, remarked that someone she knew was called Billie Jo, but she went by the name of just Billie.

BINGO! FLASHING LIGHTS! ALL THAT STUFF! 

Bobbie and Billie!

Straight away, I liked, nay, I loved those names.

Billie and Bobbie.

This is massive, I told her. No cat in the last 20 years of the history of the Joanne Jo/e family has ever had a, shall we say, a 'proper' name.

Indeed, it is so massive, it thusly deserved to be announced to the world, hence you are reading about it. This is huge.

I texted my daughter, who approved.

I told my son, who asked, which one is which?

Decisions were made, and now Billie and Bobbie are the newest additions to the family.

It would just be good if the chicken, who has been with us now for two years, had a name as well but I think  'Chicken' will have to do, and to be honest, I doubt Chicken minds that at all.