patter of tiny feet

Well, Lilly the mum cat has now brought her kittens out - here are a few pics for those of you who might be sentimentally inclined: aaah....

New arrivals at Riverside house

For those who have been following the 'cat' strand, here is our little adopted bundle of fluff we found in the forest last Summer - now with three little fluffy things of her own.
They were born in the night of Easter Monday, so I gather they must be special :-) but I waited before flashing the camera at them until now when they are a week old. Lilly (the mum) has had them in the furtherest corner of the bottom of an old wardrobe and they are still there. So of course it's not easy to take a photo by sticking the camera into the depth of the wardrobe when one can't see the screen, but I think the resulting photo shows all three fairly clearly - the white one is always on top of the other two :-) that's the bossiest one. The most handsome is the one underneath; one that you can see the least of - fabulous markings. And she is looking after them brilliantly - clever girl. But my oh my - who am I going to find to take care of them all????
Still, that's a worry for later. Now we can love them and enjoy their presence :-)

Update 15.4.10
Justght thought to add three pictures by Anna. Sweet...

oh, the poor cat's homing instinct

I was too optimistic. Our problem is that we still have builders finishing off here so, added to the trauma of moving, the resounding voices, the banging, and the power tools, obviously don't make a cat feel at home. And the bloody builders do NOT KEEP THE DOOR CLOSED. So of course our male cat, though relatively calm when shut in the 'civilised part' of the house, shot off again at the first opportunity. This time he went missing for 5 days. So the routine started again: twice or three times a day I would drive up to the old house, call, walk around, ask the old neighbours - nothing. But his paw-prints in the snow showed he was repeatedly trying to get into the old house via the locked cat-flap. Problem is that the new owners of our old house are not there - the house sits empty and locked up, so we can't even ask them to notify us when the cat turns up. Anyway, during one of my visits he suddenly appeared, miaowing and running towards me - allowed me to take him in the car, let me carry him into the new house and ate, and ate, and ate.... He has a nasty tear above his eye, so he must have had a scrape somewhere along the way. But he is with us again. How long for, we'll have to see.

Moving house, and cats saga

Well, you can see a somewhat exhausted couple of figures here. Moving during Christmas is not the most relaxing of activities - but hey, the photos are from our first night in the house, with hastily thrown-together furniture and a few pictures up. (Always hang pictures first, I say, that's what makes a home from home. Oh, and then the books of course...that's if you have the shelves ready, which we didn't, yet). Not that the whole house is finished. Even now, builders are still working in the attic and downstairs - but the first floor is where we are settling in. My study, at least, now has the required shelves at last, my internet is working again, the rest is kind of functional and still lots and lots of boxes of books and clothes and stuff. Stuff! (that's the hardest to deal with) How the furniture and pics will end up, we'll have yet to see. But it is already beginning to feel like home, and living in this old old house feels a real privilege.

What we seem to have spent most of our time on, though, during this time, was chasing after our male cat. He obviously wasn't happy about the move: over his 3+ years he fought and won a large territory, which his instinct told him to go and attend to no matter what. We knew that would be the case, so we decided to keep both our cats locked in for a week or two - but you should have heard the male cat's howls of derision at having a door closed, and being in a strange place to boot. Especially at night. It was quite unbearable, we felt SO guilty! So we thought, let's open the door to the balcony, at least. Well, he jumped the 12 feet or so, and was gone. He was gone for three days - we kept going up to the previous house, but no sign of him - and it was freezing cold out there- till one day we spotted him and brought him back to his new home. The next night the cat managed to dig an escape tunnel under the door to the garden - the floor there is still just sand and sharp shingle, waiting to be tiled with bricks. And so it went on - day after day he escaped, and day after day we spent hours looking for him - enough if a builder left the door open for a minute, or whatever. But the last few days he suddenly decided that he won't try again. He just stays at home, and doesn't even complain. Eats, plays, sleeps in our bed. So we hope that maybe, just maybe, he has forgiven us. And that eventually he may just decide that this new territory, with the garden and the riverbank, with ducks and plenty of natural cover but no other male cat in sight, will provide enough adventure for the next chapter in his life too.
Needless to say, the little female has taken to the new house with no problems: I let her out every day and she just comes back by herself.
Well. I guess when we are a little more sorted out I will make some proper photos to put up (By the way the pink on the photos is nowhere as pink in reality!). Meanwhile wish us well, please, and let's hope the builders finish soon!

look what Fate brought us

In the absence of any great progress with either of the houses, and no conclusive news about our local government's Flood defences cock-ups, I thought I might as well breathe a bit of fresh air into the blog, and share our delight in the new addition to our household.

Potok, I, and a builder were driving through a forest miles from any human habitation when something small and furry crossed the tarmac, making us screech to a halt. The macho builder immediately opened his door and ran to get it. And this is it: a tiny baby kitten, which I of course couldn't leave there - it was looking pathetic, it was shaking and I suppose it wouldn't have survived for much longer. Someone must have dumped it there as I don't see how it could have wandered off so far, let alone not have been eaten by the martens or foxes or one of the many birds of prey that live here.

Well, life is pretty complicated this year for us, and even such a small addition adds a lot to it nevertheless. Luckily the kitten is a survivor: she quickly learned how to lap up kitten milk from a saucer, soon understood about the dirt box, and already by the second day she was playing around with everything and anything. But we worried about our resident 3year old cat: would he accept this little intruder?

Wasn't easy at first! When he came in during the night as he always does, just before dawn, he found the kitten sleeping on our bed - well, HIS bed as far as he was concerned. After some low growling, he left, disgusted. But a few days later they were friends - due to the kitten's persistence in initiating the friendship. Well, now there's a lot of hide and seek, chases and rough play going around now (so much so that I sometimes wonder how the kitten survives), but as you can see, the older one is probably quite pleased to have his little friend - even though he still prefers to be out and about most of the time.The rest of the time, then, the kitten takes up MY time - it's hard to get anything done with this small being needing so much play and attention. Even now she's curled up on my lap as I write. But at least, for the moment now, I don't have to leap about playing games with her, like I am asked to do at any time when she is not sleeping.

on a sweeter note...

I was in a bit of a mood this morning when telling you about the river works in Krumlov. But how can one be sad or cross, when a little spirit comes along to say 'stop it'?