Not every job would let you go and pet cats at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in Old Windsor on a Tuesday afternoon!
International Cat Day was the perfect opportunity to organise this – the day was trending on social media all day and we had incredible success earlier in the day asking people to send in photos of their cats on the Get Surrey Facebook page. I’m sure the fact I put a photo of my beautiful cat, Shanti, on the post made it all the more attractive to readers đŸ˜‰
Local news is the best place to work because as well as dealing with interesting crime and court stories, you can ALSO go and meet cats or go on a boat with some firefighters for an hour or so (I did that last summer too).
Although I left the office a lot more when I was a reporter, before I became a content editor, there’s still such variety every single day of my working week. And now I mostly get to help others produce great work which is really satisfying. I believe we do really great things, both in serious and lighter news.
And I love doing animal stories – such as going along to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home!
I’m totally cat mad and it was amazing to meet Peaches, Jessica, Alvin and more – they were so much more affectionate than I thought they might be considering they’re living in a cattery. The Battersea staff and volunteers obviously put in an amazing amount of effort with the animals so they feel comfortable and happy.
I hope all the cats go on to find an amazing forever home… and well done to me for managing not to try and take any home myself! (I’m not sure Shanti would have liked that though anyway).
We also took a peek at some of the dogs – one of whom, Mable, had been at Battersea for well over a year which tugged at my heartstrings. It’s National Dog Day on August 26 so hopefully we’ll be back there soon.
If you’ve ever thought about getting a cat or dog, please consider rescuing one of the lovely animals at Battersea. They’re so well cared for and you will be too throughout the rehoming process because the team there is absolutely great.
