Nine cat lives (part 3) the Forest cat

My boyfriend (from part 1) lived on the top floor of an apartment building in the forest in Enschede.
That is a rather strange place for an apartment building. And it is not entirely true.
This block of student rooms were build on the edge of the campus and the campus was located along a wooded area. But if you viewed from a certain angle the building looked like being in the forest.

A small pitiful cat lived in the forest.
Sometimes she came to the building to look for food. Maybe she had lived there as a kitten. Maybe once she was left behind after her boss had graduated and had moved to the big city to live his next chapter of life.
Perhaps.
It was a shy cat who let herself be chased away by an oversized and spoiled colleague cat who belonged to the extended African family who lived on the ground floor. These tenants were busy cooking any hour of the day and sometimes they dropped a little something for the cat.

But it wasn't enough. By constant hunger he small forest cat was driven to the very top floor.
And there, and there ...
She found my boyfriend.
There they looked each other in the eyes ...
The room got filled with the tender sound of violins ...
And they stayed together.
Forever.

No, that is not true either.
Well, it is not entirely true.

The violin part is true, whaha. But ... Frank and the forest cat also kept their own life. The cat, now called 'Ger', regularly went back to the forest for days and Frank stayed alone in his student room. This especially occurred when that certain person came to visit. You know; that woman from Alkmaar, with that half-sick grey cat.
Sometimes, in case of a long weekend because of holidays, I even left Poerk in Enschede during the midweek. That was less stressful for him than making that same long trip within a few days. And beside that; during daytime I was not at home in Alkmaar and Poerk would be alone.

At the end of 1990, when Frank and I were seeing each other for a year, we rented a better house in the centre of Alkmaar. Frank actually had to study for another year, but he thought he could do that from Alkmaar. I have no clue how he organised that, but apparently he could control the realisation of his mechanical engineering study from a distance. That in itself is a proof of mechanical engineering, I think.

But, this decision meant a big drama for Ger and Frank. Should Frank leave Ger in her beloved forest, where she would never get enough food? Or should he catch her and lock her up in a basket, fighting and screaming on her way to an unknown future?

Because Poerk had died, we had room for a new cat.
Ger accepted a life full of love and food, but without the freedom of her forest.

She lived for another 7 years.
One day she just fell down on the step of the front door. What Poerk had taken months, Ger moved to her afterlife within an hour.

This were the days before internet. Below you can see our idea of 'SMS'.

Nine cat lives (part 2) the Peeer
Nine cat lives (part 1) the Gentleman