Feline Lonely at Battersea Cats Home

What do you do when you have no man on Valentine's Day? You go make a date with the next best thing; Cats. So last night I went to check out the Feline Lonely event at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, where lonely human hearts craving some furry attention could cuddle kitties. And who knows, maybe go home with a cat or a fellow cat lover. The famous dog and cat kennel regularly puts on themed cat cuddle nights and there have been events held for Halloween and Christmas. The dogs are usually not invited to this occasions because so much human attention tends to get them over-excited.

When I arrived it was obvious that I wasn't the only one wanting to get up close and purrsonal with the Battersea cats as there was a line of umbrella holding Londoners wrapped around the corner. My equally man-less friend and I decided to brave the stormy weather and we joined the queue.

While we were waiting, staff walked along the queue to hand out some welcome treats. Served in food bowls the snacks looked suspiciously like cat food, but they luckily tasted very human. Once inside we were welcomed with a glass of bubbly and some more nibbles.

 The queue of feline friendly visitors snaked further up along the spiral staircase where the cats were eagerly waiting to be petted. We walked along the glass cages, which looked very luxurious in cat terms. Some cats were oblivious to the Valentine's event and were sleeping in their raised beds, some were arrogantly looking back at the passers-by, seemingly debating whether to let a human stroke them or not. While others were having the time of their lives with their chosen cuddlers for the evening.

Unfortunately, there were so many humans that had arrived before us that the waiting time for a  cat cuddle was over an hour. We didn't want to join the cuddle wait list and decided to leave and check out the pub across the street where a group of loud human male punters welcomed us in. Maybe we were going to get some cuddles after all...