About Us

The inspiration for my prefix “Siskadell” came to me out of the blue and is a remembrance in honour of my late parents. My mother’s nickname was “Siska” (of Dutch origin) which was also the name of our house in my youth. My late father’s business of over 50 years was called “Dell Garage”. I decided the combination of the two had quite a ring to it and it at least meant something, rather than all the fancy names I had researched but meant very little to me personally.

It is fitting that my parents are remembered in this way as it was through them that my love of animals was born. We always had dogs about the place, Dachshunds and Labradors (an odd combination of little and large one might say but it worked very well) and we were allowed, over the years, to keep a menagerie of pets as long as we were responsible for their total welfare. My husband’s family traditionally always had cats.

We are Jennifer and Les Thomas and we originate from Norfolk but have lived on the outskirts of York since 1972 (when we married). Having to work full time as one does it was no longer fair or practical to own dogs so a compromise was reached and my husband and I decided a cat was the only practical solution and for the greater part of our marriage we have always had rescue cat. On the loss of our last well-loved cat I had a yen to own Siamese and thus came about the acquisition of two old-style Siamese, “Me Tu” and “Yu Tu”. To cut a long story short this led to the acquisition of a whole new circle of friends and direction in our lives. Just under a year ago in November 2006 we suddenly became the proud owners of two beautiful Norwegian Forest Cats in addition to our lovely Siamese girls. During the last 10 months we have tentatively dipped our toes into the world of the Cat Fancy by showing our kittens who did very well coming 1st and 2nd in both “Opens” of two of the shows entered. Fern got a very credible 4th in a very strong field at the all Norwegian Forest Cat Club Show and we have now actually just bred our first litter. I was midwife and have to say it was an experience I would not have missed for the world. Exhilarating!! Anyway, enough about us please meet the more important and interesting members of our household.