Hello friends, I thought that as you love cats as much as I do, I would try to explain how my alias came about.

Part 1.

One day there was a little knock on my front door, I went to see who it was and to my great surprise, I found my rather large 26 year old daughter, wearing a gigantic black leather coat standing there sobbing her heart out. I helped her into the house between sobs and sat with her for 10 minutes till she calmed down enough to be able to talk.

The story slowly unraveled between wracking sobs that she had been given a kitten, however, she is allergic to cats. Her husband is a farmer and had said that as she couldn't keep it he could wring it's little neck and she wouldn't have to worry about finding it a new home. Now, this I know sounds horrifying, but for him it's all in a days work. Nooooo way was she going to allow him to do it.

I felt so sorry for her and the kitten so I gently enquired what had happened to it, and lo and behold, she opened her coat and out popped this little furry head. Well !!!!! Of course, I was hooked, those great big green eyes just blinked and I was a goner, I was instantly the proud owner of this tiny kitten and my daughter was on her way home half an hour later with a much relieved heart and a smile on her face.

Part 2.

About 15 minutes later I was sitting curled up on the sofa in the lounge with this little scrap of fur with big green eyes on my hand and in bounded my 6'6'' (I am a Macho Man) 16yr old son. This hormone-ridden whirlwind just skidded to a halt in the middle of the room, his eyes glazed over and he was instantly transformed into a big cuddly teddy bear. He got down on his hands and knees at the side of me and begged to hold the kitten. As he played and teased it with a tassel off a cushion, I was mesmerized by the transformation and was daydreaming of the polite, smiling, friendly little boy he had been in years gone by. He asked me what I had called it; I said I hadn't had time to think of a name for him yet.
Suddenly he looked up and said, 'You just got to call him Cepher mum' ok..... so I was still day-dreaming, and I had an instant picture in my mind of the Greek Gods up in the clouds from the old fashioned classic films, you know the ones, Apollo, Persephone, Zeus, Cepher, Hera, Ceres etc: 'yes' I thought he fits right in there and he was christened Cepher there and then. I looked at the fur ball and then to my son, and explained what I was envisioning in my mind.

Imagine my confusion when my 224lb son looked at me with a 'gob smacked' look on his face and curled up and rolled around the floor hugging his sides, tears of laughter pouring down his face. I just couldn't understand what I had said or done to cause this reaction so I waited patiently till his massive fit of the giggles had subsided. 
'And ?' said I, putting as much emphasis on the question part of it as I could, 'Cepher' said my son, 'Yes, a Greek God' I answered quite seriously,...... it heralded yet another case of the rolling and giggles. Eventually sanity played its trump card and he very quietly and gently explained to me, 'Cepher mum, as in C for cat' ........it took me quite a while to work it out, but ooooooooohhhhhh the embarrassment I felt, the chagrin, the 'you made a fool out of me' feelings I went through for almost 10 minutes, then, out of the blue, I saw the funny side of it all......... and just guess who's turn it was to roll and giggle ?................... 

Part 3

Both the previous parts of this story happened over 12 years ago.

Cepher settled into our family way of life very well. 
I however settled into being his butler, feeding machine, general servant and maid even better. 

He explained to me what time I was to open the door so he could go for his morning walks, usually by sitting patiently by the front door till I walked groggily by towards the kitchen and my first cup of coffee of the day, then hurling himself at the nearest leg, claws akimbo, till he was ungently thrown out of the door. I soon learnt coffee is not the first item on my list of the day.

My second item is of course the feeding machine part. Before the kettle has had time to boil, thunder is rattling around the kitchen as Cepher is battering on the kitchen door to get back in.

At first I knew no better and let him in, this however precipitated two visits to the hospital for me, one with a sprained hip and one with a broken bone in my foot. Yes, I do love Cepher; he just loves to wrap himself round my feet in a great show of affection when he meets me, except for the first meeting of the day.

Being the runt of the litter Cepher is still to this day a very small cat, although he has copious amounts of fur which makes him look quite big, however he can't eat a lot all in one go like most cats do, so the feeding machine is encouraged to work five times a day at the very least.

Between meals Cepher just loves to curl up in a nice warm comfy place, which is why he chose over every other place in our house...our bed. He scrapes and pummels his way under the sheets till he gets himself just under MY pillow, aaaaaaah............cat heaven. To this day he doesn't understand why I like to keep the bed straight and looking tidy, so the maid steps in. 

By the way, the servant has been run ragged in the meantime

Part 4

Now, where was I up to?

Ahhhh yes I remember now............about 2 years ago my son decided to drag me kicking and screaming into the 21st century, he dumped an empty computer case and a LOT of bits and pieces in the middle of my dining table and with a charming smile on his face he said 'there you go mum, your very own computer’ then gave me a big hug and kiss and promptly disappeared into the real world once again.

I had never even seen all these bits and pieces that make up a working computer, let alone knowing what they were for, and apparently neither had Cepher because he was just as curious as I was. 

It took me 6 weeks to sort it all out, Two weeks to put it all together and make it work and 4 weeks of cat, cat fur, cat food, crumbs and 1 fur-ball extrication.

The 'Great Day' arrived when I finally fired up my very own computer. It was very basic, just the tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse, Windows95 and nothing else, no modem, printer, scanner or anything like that. I was delighted, Cepher was not !!!! All his new toys had been put away into a box and he couldn't play anymore, I got the cold shoulder treatment from him for weeks.

Next came the nerve-wracking day of the modem, I was shaking with the anticipation of ‘surfing’. Cepher was my best friend once again; the toy box was open. Having gained copious amounts of experience the last time around, I removed one cat from the premises, much to his annoyance, and installed the modem. It worked, I surfed, for the first time in my life I was 'on the net' and I got lost in the wonder of it all. 

Hubby was working away at the time so I was alone in my big new world, lunch, dinner and supper time came and went, I was oblivious to the passage of time. Somewhere in my travels I found hotmail and decided I needed an e-mail address and proceeded to look through the information on how to get one, finally I found the page to apply and clicked on it, I read the instructions and totally baffled, sat here wondering what to call myself. It was at this precise moment Cepher had had enough of his starvation diet and decided it was time to let me know he was hungry. He landed fair and square in front of my monitor, 2 legs each side of my keyboard and butted me in the face. Needless to say, eyes peered over fur, fingers worked frantically through legs and Cepher had arrived 'on the net.' 
And that my friends, is why I’m called Cepher.

Hugs from Cepher.