Cats in hats?

[Chateau Miaou]

Hi

We've got a lovely 15-year old cat, Blobby, who loves to lie in the sun (even when it's really, really hot) - well, he didn't get much of a chance to do that when we lived in Scotland! Unfortunately, he loves it too much and developed skin cancer on one of his ears late last summer (he's mostly white with black blobs, hence his name). The vets tried to save his ear and removed part of it in the middle of October, but the cancer spread and they had to then remove the rest of his ear at the beginning of December.

He's still got his hearing in both ears, and is coping with it very well (better than I did when he first came back from the vets - he looked dreadful) and we're managing to resist calling him 'b uggerlug' instead of 'b uggerlugs' when he's up to mischief. [:)]

However, my serious question is, how do we stop him doing the same again this year and losing his other ear (or worse). He's already out there this afternoon, sprawled in the relatively weak February sun and I need to do something soon. I've tried putting suntan lotion on (not an easy task) and I don't think he'll appreciate a sun-hat of any kind. Does anyone have any suggestions, sensible or otherwise?