This December, instead of sending Christmas cards, we will be making a donation to Cats Protection charity.

I wasn’t planning to adopt a cat that day—I was only browsing. But then I landed on the Cats Protection website and saw Charles staring back at me. His profile mentioned that once a stray, he was currently living with a foster carer waiting for his forever home. Something about him just clicked.

A few messages later, I found myself with my partner knocking on the door of the foster home for our first meeting. I felt oddly nervous, like going on a first date where only one of you knows what’s going on!

We sat on the floor and let him come to us on his own terms. After a few cautious sniffs, he bumped his head gently against my hand. His purr started as a faint hum and then grew louder. We spent the next half hour getting to know each other and we knew then that we definitely wanted him to be our new furry flat mate!

Paperwork was completed and a week later a lovely volunteer brought him to us.  What a great job they do!

Cats Protection is the UK’s largest cat welfare charity, founded in 1927 to rescue, rehome, and provide support for cats. The charity works to improve the welfare of all cats by finding them new homes, offering advice to owners, and running neutering programs. They achieve this through a network of 185 volunteer-run branches and 32 centers across the UK.

• Rehoming:

Cats Protection finds new homes for stray, unwanted, or homeless cats and kittens. They provide a full health check, vaccinations, flea and worm treatment, and a neutering voucher for kittens before they are rehomed.

• Advice and support:

The charity offers advice to cat owners on topics such as cat care, preventing problem behaviours, and neutering. They also have schemes to help cat owners who need financial assistance for neutering.

• Campaigning:

Cats Protection advocates for better laws to protect cats and raises awareness about cat welfare issues.

• Neutering:

A core part of their work is promoting and providing access to neutering for all cats to help control the stray cat population.

• Support:You can support Cats Protection by sponsoring a cat, donating, volunteering, or becoming a member.