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Welcome to Baranchri Somalis
.jpg) We
are Barbara and Chris Bullivant. We live between our two houses in
South Manchester and on Anglesey with our Somalis and Maine Coons.
Chris had cats all his life but Barbara is a more recent convert,
having previously been very much a dog person.
It
all began when, due to old age or sickness, Chris’s moggie
collection reduced to one. He announced one day that he wanted a
pedigree cat. Not knowing much about the different breeds we
embarked on a research project and as Barbara is uncomfortable with
long, fine cat hair, we quickly decided we wanted a short hair.
Several books later we agreed to go and see some Abyssinians and
went to meet a lovely lady called Ann Rose of Seawinds Abys who is
sadly no longer with us. While we were there she introduced us to
the last of her late companion’s Somalis who just happened to be
looking for a new home as the Abys would not accept him. We had
never heard of Somalis before.
It
was love at first meeting despite his long hair and very soon
thereafter Ticketyboo came to live with us. He was 10 years old and
had a charming personality. He adored people and purred so loudly
whenever he had company he was likened to a well tuned tractor
engine.
Unfortunately he was an escapologist and despite our best efforts to
keep him in he
kept climbing out of the bedroom transom
window and
leaping from the window sill to the caravan roof and away, only
returning, usually with a present for us, when he was ready. He
brought us frogs, voles and small birds; even at ten he was a very
successful hunter. As we live on a very busy main road his time with
us was cut short and after only ten months the inevitable happened
and he now lies beneath our cherry tree.
.jpg) Once
owned by a Somali one can never be without one (be warned) so we
just had to have another. We came across the Somali Cat Club who put
us in touch with a local breeder, Sandra Melia of Astrokini Somalis
who just happened to have two kittens. So early in 2000 Astrokini
Megabyte and Astrokini Pixel came to live with us. At the time we
had no intention of showing but thought we might like to breed one
litter to keep a kitten from. Sandra, however had other ideas and
asked if she could show Pixel for us. We had decided to go along to
the Somali Cat Club show anyway, so entered them both for fun.
Pixel did well, taking best female kitten in show, being beaten for
best kitten by the cat who eventually went best in show. Chris was
then hooked on showing and it became a hobby we could share.
For the rest of our story please
visit the individual pages for each cat!
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