Exhausting days

Just as we thought we were beginning to see a pattern to our days, it all changed.

The three smallest humans from our old family came over yesterday morning. Well, that's not so different, except that they bought two cat-sized humans too. I tried to make friends with one of them: 

I patted her in several places, but she didn't respond at all. Very mysterious. 

So I abandoned her for a while, thinking she was fast asleep with her eyes open. I do that sometimes. The regular-sized small humans played with lots of toys, so we joined in: 

Later on they wanted to run around holding ribbons, so we chased them - it was too noisy, though, so we had to hide. 

The unusual thing was that these extra humans ate their meals with my two humans, and then went to bed in my female human's study. We weren't allowed in.

The following morning I tried to be friendly to the other cat-sized human, but she was very fast asleep. I couldn't wake her up even when I jumped on her legs:

Still, the three ordinary humans were running around and playing, so we joined in with them. 

By the time all these extra people had gathered up their things and departed, after lunch this afternoon, Joan and I were exhausted!

Hiding behind the sofa

Today my humans made lights and noise come out of the black screen thing. I don't like it much. The old black cat Cleo jumped on them and watched too, but I found it quite terrifying.

One of the humans said she used to hide behind the sofa when she was small. It seemed like a very good idea:

Small room

We understand that there are some things the humans don't want us to do.

It makes no sense, but nobody ever said humans are rational. We don't like them getting agitated or shouting, so we try to do these things when they're not looking.

But what seems very strange is that there are some rooms where we're not supposed to go. There's one small room with so many interesting things in it, including a nice sink and some paper on a roll that's fun to pat.

But when a human goes in this room, he closes the door and won't let us in, no matter how quietly and patiently we wait outside:

Forbidden places

It's so difficult learning about the human world. For one thing, they're not very good at understanding our language. For another, there are so many interesting places to explore, but we never know whether the humans are going to be happy or not.

I found a lovely wooden bowl today, just the right size for a growing kitten:

The male human thought it was amusing, and he pulled out a box thing that he clicked. Then he said,'No, Alex, that's a fruit bowl,' and put me on the ground.

So I went to chase my sister. We play lots of games, running around and hiding from each other, and pouncing. But even Joan is getting a bit boring. Sometimes she doesn't like it when I jump on her and bite her ears. So she's finding places that I can't easily get to:

So frustrating.

All change

My sisters and I were learning a lot from our mother, like how to dodge out of the way of the smaller humans when they were making a lot of noise or running too fast. We discovered nice food, and learned to drink water from a bowl without getting inside it.

The humans told me I was Alexander the Great, and my multi-coloured sister was Joan of Arc. The grey one seemed to have lots of names, though.

Then one day, two of the regular visitors came by. There was the tall thin one that was known as 'Tim', who was very fond of my grey sister. He said he was going to take her away. The other visiting human, who seemed to be called 'Dad' (at least by Tim) said he was going to take me and my other sister Joan!

We wondered where they might take us, but it sounded exciting. They put us in a box, which wasn't very nice, and then we all got into a bigger box that made a noise and scared us, which the humans called a 'car'. Then they took us into a different house.

Before we had time to be worried, they gave us some food, just like we had at our first house:

It was all exciting, and new, and we didn't have time to miss our mother at first. Then we found the litter tray, and that smelled like home, so we got inside and felt miserable:

That didn't last for long, because we had to use it for the normal purpose. We had such fun scratching it afterwards, seeing how much we could get out of the box, and we forgot all about our first home for a while.

But I was glad of my sister to cuddle at night.

I woke up and couldn't remember where I was, but when I jumped onto the bed and landed on the human with my claws out, he shouted at me.

There was so much to learn, in our new house. At first we thought we would go home soon, but gradually we forgot about our first home and decided we liked the second one. It was quieter, as the smaller humans only came to visit once or twice each week, but there were two old cats who didn't like us at first. Our mother had taught us how to lie down instead of fighting, so we did that, and let the old cats - one black, one tortoiseshell - know that they were the bosses.

At least, while we settled in. We got more active, and ran around, and discovered which things we could knock over. It was a lot of fun.

Just as we thought we were feeling at home the box appeared again and we went back in the car. We thought maybe we were going back to our first family, but we were taken to a different place, that smelled of lots of animals.

The next bit is very fuzzy in my mind, but I sense that it was significant. I'm pretty sure that something rather undignified took place. Then we were taken home again.

I didn't feel at all comfortable for a couple of days, and my poor sister Joan was very miserable. So I licked her and we snuggled up together, even though it was really very warm.

And gradually, things got better.