Back From Holidays

We’re back. I haven’t published much in the last three weeks because I’ve been on holiday. That should mean that I had more time for writing articles, but it didn’t work out that way.

The cats are all doing nicely. Josie and Renn went for their yearly examinations and both were pronounced well. Josie is overweight. I knew that. I knew it last year when I was informed that she was overweight. But she was commended on her teeth. They were in excellent shape ‘for a cat her age’. She’s supposedly a senior. She’s seven years old. In human terms that would make her thirty-five, not even middle-aged, and if a cat lives to be about sixteen or eighteen years, then she hasn’t even passed the half-way mark in her life. Senior, indeed.

The white one continues to be friendlier and friendlier, wanting attention whenever I give it. She even visited me in the bathroom one evening; that’s a dubious improvement in her character, but even so, it’s something the other cats do, especially Renn, and something my Chubs has not done before.

Renn was very scared during the trip to the veterinary. He’s still quite nervous of unknown things. But with people he knows, he is bolder than he used to be, and eager to receive attention.

According to my own attempts at weighing the cats, all have lost weight - yes, even Josie, a little bit - except for Tucker. The roly poly one is getting both rolier and polier. He has started to imitate Renn’s method for starting play in the nylon tunnel, and thrusting himself into one of the holes in the top. Unfortunately, he can’t fit as well as Renn - and my big boy barely fits at all. Tucker has not played in the tunnel until recently, and I think it is an example of one cat learning from another. But he’s a fun, friendly fellow, though his squeaks and trills are the least cat-like sounds imaginable.

And Tungsten remains the same. She hasn’t grown to like Tucker any more, still tolerates Josie and is the barest of friends with Renn. She continues to be the top-cat of the household and Tucker seems not to try any longer to get close to her. (He appears to have shifted more emphasis to becoming friends/annoying Josie.) The orange one is active when she wants to be, rushing about the house by herself, jumping at the string toy when she feels like it and snoozing much of the time. She is not a cat who interests herself in the outside world too much. Her life is inside: food in the bowl, water from the tap, a lap to lie on and a cushion to sleep on. She’s happy.