Lady Livingstone, I presume?

I woke up sometime in the middle of the night with itching ankles! There are mosquitoes buzzing around the bedroom and they’ve had a feast! As a result I woke up late, yet again. And had to really drag myself out of bed, I am so low on energy! Coffee helped a bit. Ziva was sitting on the top tier of the scratching post looking out the door – I wondered about that. I shut her in the bedroom when I left – and found The Terror downstairs! No wonder Ziva wouldn’t go out!

I was going to just go to Spar tomorrow – but I just remembered that I’m low on cat food. So I’ll have to go in another direction. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to get not only kibbles for kittens, but for one year old’s as well. It could be that Ziva is filling out so much because she’s not getting the nutrients she needs from the kitten food – and is eating more to meet her needs.

Back at home, I’m trying to settle down – but my family has other ideas. I barely manage to sit down when Mewthos comes running upstairs and leads me outside, downstairs to the garden where they are playing under Ziva’s and Shadow’s supervision. When they’re all busy and seem to ignore me, I try to sneak back upstairs, but Lady Jane comes and insists I come watch them play. So I pull up a chair for Rose and sit down in the garden.

It’s been a hot, dry day, so it’s lovely to sit with a cool breeze in the garden. After a while, we notice Lady Jane appears to be missing – no need to panic though, when the mommies are near. I look around and see that she has crawled underneath the fence and is sitting on Rose’s side, on the wall! It’s new territory, and quite high, so she sits and calculates for some time before jumping!

Now – there is no short way to get to Rose’s garden. I would have to either go down the path, walk alongside the road, go through Rose’s gates into her garden. Her gates are locked, of course. Alternately, I can go round the back, through Rose’s flat and out her front door. It’s a really stupid set-up. Rose, however, has a better idea: She picks up Shadow and plonks her over the fence into her garden.

Shadow promptly tries to get Lady Jane to come back. Lady Jane, however, has other ideas. There are grasshoppers in Rose’s garden! And there are so many interesting new plants. And such a lot of new smells! And what’s over there on the far side? She ignores Shadow’s attempts to herd her back home. She ignores me calling her. And now she’s walked around so much going to and fro she’s no longer sure how to get home? The wall was quite high to jump down from, and she didn’t go any of the adult cat’s routes – she went under the fence, whereas the adults climb up a post over the fence.

Lady Jane is finally ready to come back home, but now she doesn’t know how! So I stand by the lower wall, call her until she comes, bend down the fence until I can reach her, pick her up by the scruff and haul her back home. As I lift her to my face – she gets a stern ‘You must learn to listen!’ look. Lady Livingstone, I presume?

After her adventure, Lady Jane stays very, very close by my side!

Mewthos, meanwhile, is mighty curious about Rose’s tomcat – who comes to join her in what he consider to be HIS garden. Mewthos tail and back bush out a little, as does the tom. When Mewthos gets too close, the tom warns him off. At least, he makes little noises, which don’t sound threatening – we’re not sure what they are meant to convey. But Mewthos stays curious and this dance is repeated on several occasions through out our playtime visit.

At one point Ziva goes for a saunter outside the garden. Some time later Shadow also goes for a saunter – I guess they trust Rose and myself to watch the Mips while they take care of adult business.

I have noticed one thing regarding the sandbox, though. In the past, I’d always give myself a one day break after the strenuous job of emptying, cleaning and refilling it. And vacuuming the entire corner, then replacing the three layers of newspaper, black bags and blanket. Since Earl has left, I’ve found that – with only three cats – the daily volume produced matches the daily volume I can scoop. With that, I mean, that the sand kind of clumps naturally – like wet sand does. And when I just fill the scoop and let everything dry run through (without shaking the scoop to speed the sifting), those wet clumps stay clumps and I can scoop them into the daily bag. Since I last emptied, cleaned and refilled the sandbox – now over a week ago – I’ve not had any smells coming from it! Well, not after I scooped it, at least. Nor have there been any more ‘outside the box’ incidents. No, I don’t think Earl was the culprit – I still believe it was Lady Jane, but I would say that large sandbox is just right for one adult and two Mips. As the Mips keep growing, I may start running into trouble again – but at least this week, I didn’t have to go through that major effort of cleaning that entire corner! I merely added another 5kg of sand.

Well, it’s time for the night time feeding – Mewthos and Lady Jane are sitting by the door, hoping for another outing, while Ziva is napping on a chair. I hope sleep is on tonight’s agenda!