Katie Holland: Why I'm a total, utter scaredy-cat

EVIL EYES: Being a grown-up means never having to be attached to cats. PHOTO/FILE

IF THERE'S one thing guaranteed to get me worked up, it's cats.

To be frank, they terrify me. Yep I'm a scaredy-cat of cats.

I put my very real but admittedly irrational cat phobia down to a traumatic childhood experience. I must have been 8 or 9. We were outside my Nana and Pop's house saying goodbye after a visit when a strange cat appeared. Even then, I wasn't the biggest cat fan, so when it came towards me I moved away slightly. It kept coming (they sense fear, you know) and I kept moving away. I ran and the cat chased me. I swear, the cat chased me.

And all the while my grandparents, parents and brother were standing there laughing their heads off, thinking it was a heck of a joke and I was kidding around. To this day, my mother swears she had no idea I was actually freaking out, but I'm not convinced. Every time I tell this story - often to cat lovers struggling to understand my fear - people mock. Is it any wonder I'm scarred for life?

Maggie was the one exception to the rule. I remember looking out the window of my Wellington student flat and seeing my flatmate coming up the steps with a cardboard box. "Yay, Girl Guide biscuits," I thought. You can imagine the disappointment when it turned out she had adopted a kitten, without asking her flatmates. Maggie, so named because we'd just discovered maggots in the ham, grew on me and eventually I came to accept her.

But now, I can't relax if a cat is in the room. I sit on edge, warily watching it out of the corner of my eye as it eyes me up. Inevitably, they come to me, rubbing up against my legs while I uncomfortably edge away then eventually run.

In Rotorua last week, controversial campaigner Gareth Morgan told a conference there was a real issue in New Zealand with wandering cats and they needed to be controlled. I agree. My house seems to have become the preferred hang-out for a clowder of neighbourhood cats. They jump out of the garden at me while I am hanging the washing, they streak past my ranch slider as I am getting dressed and they taunt me with their evil, haughty eyes when I yell at them to get off my lawn.

I've even considered the old "bottles of water on the lawn" trick that used to be all the rage years ago - but quite how that is meant to scare off a cat is beyond me. Gosh, how the cats must laugh at that one.

Mr Morgan used his speech to clarify he doesn't want to shoot all cats. And I should clarify the same. In fact, I don't want to shoot any. I just want them to keep well away from me.

On the plus side, no matter how mad I become in future years and how long I'm single, at least I ain't ever gonna be no cat lady.