Written by ©Ariane (flickr: That Girl Over There, Ariane's website).

We adopted our little Billi as a kitten from a farm. She was so tiny when we got her. I absolutely loved her for her blue eyes. She was the least afraid and most curious out of her litter. We keep her as an indoor cat, but she quite enjoys to travel with us and is not afraid of new places.

Billi got her name because I asked my husband what the word for cat was in his native tongue - Gujarati - and he told me it is Bilardi. So I thought Billi is a great name. Now what he didn't tell me was that Billi also means just plain "cat" in Hindi. So now when our Hindi speaking friends come over they always giggle that we have a cat called cat.

I felt a bit sorry for Billi at the beginning for having no other kittens to play with, so I created a toy cat named Run-O, more or less for fun. But within minutes she took to that little guy and she was hardly seen without him since. He is almost completely destroyed by now, but she still won't let go of him and didn't accept a replacement I made for her. She carries him around like a baby one minute, attacks him like a prey the next one and then you can see her liking him like a friend again. It's very fun to watch.

She loves to play with her endless toys as well. When she wants a treat she will stand up and beg like a dog and because it just looks sooo cute, she is always successful.

Because Billi is such a beautiful cat, with such symmetric markings and those lovely long white whiskers I have always enjoyed taking countless pictures of her. She is a real good model with many different faces. One of her photos, where she is yawning, is hanging really big in the town hall of my home town at the moment as part of my photo exhibition. Everyone loves this photo and thinks Billi is the star.

Now we finally gave in and got her a little sister, not even a week ago. We really hope the two will get along well, because little Luna is just the sweetest. Billi feels the sibling rivalry, but we make sure, that she always feels like our number one, because that's exactly what she is!

Photos courtesy of ©Ariane (flickr: That Girl Over There, Ariane's website).