New babies in our life

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that the new year will bring you good health, happiness and lots of love.  I haven't blogged for a while because I have been recovering from two surgeries in five days in early December.  I am fine now, just get tired a lot.  I think it will take me a while to get over having the two general anaesthetics but I'm grateful that I am not in pain any more.

Our family has increased by three more.  We are now owned by four gorgeous cats: Max, who we got in June and who turned one year old in December, and three babies from Max's parents in the next litter.  Here they are

On the left in this photo is Sapphire, named by our neighbour (the parent cats belong to her) because of her vivid blue eyes when she was littler.  Of course they aren't blue now, they are turning green because the kittens are 8 weeks old.  On the right is Sophie.  We can tell Sophie and Sapphire apart because Sapphire has a black smudge beside her nose, Sophie has a pale ginger smudge beside hers.  Sapphire also has a white patch on her back and her colouring is a little more muted than Sophie's.

And here is Sam.  He is a lovely cream colour with the faintest of ginger tabby markings, and light ginger tips on his ears.  Curiously, he still has blue eyes.  His colouring is deepening a bit as he gets older, at first he was whiter than he is now and I worried at first that he might be deaf as some white cats with blue eyes are.  But he's not deaf, that's for sure.  Because he has the genes for colour he escapes that.   He is the most laid-back of the three.

Sam is the friendliest of the three, and Sapphire is almost as friendly.  Sophie is coming around now that we've had them for a week, and they all have got to the stage where they enjoy - and ask for - pats and stroking.  They even enjoy being cuddled now whereas they didn't like being held at first.

Over the last few days all three of them have learned to climb the cat tree, and Sam has even made it up to the top level.  It's six foot high and it took them a while before they could manage it.  Because we want the cats to stay indoors for a couple of months, and to come inside at night, we have provided them with plenty of toys and I have also ordered another climbing tree for them.

After Chloe, our gorgeous tortie who was Max's sister disappeared, Max fretted for her for some time.  He and his other sister Cindy used to play together all the time, even before Chloe disappeared, and then Cindy disappeared too.  Max and his brother Cuddly, who is a pale ginger fluffy cat are great friends now and Cuddly likes to come into our house and steal two toys that he really likes.  He takes them to his house next door and our neighbours find them and return them.  We think that Chloe was stolen by someone who really likes tortoiseshell cats.  And that when they discovered that she had been desexed, they came back for Cindy.  So I am concerned about the welfare of our two new girls too.  The kittens might end up being kept totally indoors though I hate to think of them not being able to enjoy the back yard and garden.

 At first Max was totally affronted to find the kittens had taken up residence and he sulked for a couple of days.  He had visited them often when he went next door, but having them invade his own territory was different.  Then eventually he started playing with them and now he greets them nose-to-nose and grooms them.  All four of them bounce madly around the house chasing each other and having great fun.

He still likes to sit on me for a cuddle morning and evening as this very unflattering photo of us shows.  Max doesn't sit on my knee, he likes to lie on my arm and nuzzle into my shoulder.  He was distracted by the camera here so moved his head.

But he won't sit on me if one of the kittens is on me too.

The kittens also seem to think that as soon as I turn on my laptop it is the signal for them to come and sit on the keyboard.  I have to fight to keep them off so that I can type, though I can still play my solitaire with them on it - until they move and press different keys, with interesting results :)  I must say that having the three of them adds a lot of fun to our lives.

What do you mean, you want to play solitaire?

At the moment they sleep a lot but the length of time they do that decreases by the day.  They will be nine weeks old this Thursday, and have already grown a lot since we got them a week and a half ago.

So, being a mad  cat lady, I finally have the four cats again that I wanted.   The last time we had four was many years ago.  I am very happy.  It's a shame that cats calm down as they get older, they provide a lot of pleasure witht heir antics.  Mind you, I'm glad that I haven't replaced my curtains (I have the fabric ready to make new ones) or bought our new lounge suite yet ;)