Munch's Story

The Best Christmas Ever

Told by Munch's Mum

The black cat with the white heart arrived into our lives on 2nd July 2015.

It was a hot summer’s day and he walked in through the open patio doors. He lay down on the mat and was super friendly, even requesting some belly rubs. Richard offered him some ham from the fridge, which he gobbled up enthusiastically. He was a happy boy, purring and making biscuits on the bean bag we had put on the mat.

We think it was from that moment, that he decided this could be his new home. He spent the next few weeks coming and going as he pleased, and sitting on my lap when I came home from work. He would leave at night & go off on his patrols.

Then it was time for us to go off on one of our holidays to Greece. I set up a shelter outside in the garden for him. We decided that if he was still waiting for us when we got back, that he must surely want to adopt us.

Sure enough, within a few hours of returning from holiday, he was back asking to come inside. We decided we would look for missing cat posters around the estate, check out local social media groups, and take him to the vet to see if he was chipped. When we got to the vet, they confirmed he wasn’t chipped and estimated his age to be 2 based on his teeth. The vet asked if we wanted to chip him and register him to us, so we did! And that was that, we decided to call him Munchkin, on Grandpa’s suggestion, and his adoption of us as his humans was complete.

Later on, Munchkin became affectionately known as Munch Pudding based on a family tradition of everyone being called Pud. Munch, for short.

From 2015 to 2019, we spent 4 and a half happy years together, including a few trips to the vets for minor injuries along the way. Munch loved to be outside, it was what made him happy, exploring his territory and keeping everything in order.

Then, one Sunday night, December 8th 2019, Munch did not come home. At the time Munch was much more nocturnal than now, so whilst I was worried, this wasn’t totally out of character and I hoped he was just having an adventure and would come home in the morning. But as I went off to work, Munch still hadn’t returned. I thought this was odd. I drove home at lunch time, but alas, he hadn’t returned. When I returned from work later that evening, my heart sank when I realised he wasn’t there waiting for me.

After a couple of days, the friends I had made on #CatsOfTwitter started to ask why I hadn’t posted pictures of Munch for a while, so we told Phoebe & Juno what had happened. They immediately helped to spread the word, as did many others. Everyone was so kind & supportive, and gave me lots of advice about what to do.

In the evenings and early mornings, I searched for Munch every day and grew increasingly worried. I missed him so much. Then the weather turned really bad. I will always remember the torrential rain as I searched for him desperately, not being able to bear thinking of him being out in that weather for so long.

We ordered posters and I walked around our estate with a little step ladder, tying the picture of his beautiful face to as many lampposts as I could. I also dropped posters into the local shops and pub. People on #CatsOfTwitter encouraged me to leaflet all the houses near me, so I ordered 4,000. Richard and I leafleted 1,000s of homes, until our hands were sore from pushing them through all the letterboxes.

Whilst I had moments of despair, because of the support from people of on #CatsOfTwitter, I never gave up hope that Munch would find his way home. We had a number of reported sightings, and it raised my hopes, but each turned out not to be Munch.

My world stopped turning in those 10 days. I just felt completely empty. The house seemed devoid of life without him, and all his beds, food and toys were a constant reminder he was missing. Christmas was on hold. 

To read the story about Munch and see how it ends, please check our book on Amazon