William has turned up. He somehow managed to get himself locked into the empty house next door - presumably someone must have gone for a viewing yesterday. Max and I were making a snowman in the front garden this afternoon (I got to come home early on account of a little bit of snow...) and I heard his miaow. And, fortunately, we have keys for the house so we could get him. He was purring ecstatically, but still didn't want to be picked up. Although being put down in the snow did make him pause for thought...

So. Yay us!

It appears that one of our cats - William - has gone missing. He wasn't around yesterday evening and hasn't appeared so far today.

My cute lil girl pussy cat is actually a cute lil boy pussy cat!

He's had his shots today and not only discovered ear mites (which we pretty much knew about) but also bollocks.

At least that means his speying will be a lot cheaper.

We should be getting another cat!

We got a phone call last night from Kim (the woman who was supplying us with Saturn Starcat and then had to put her down), apologising profusely for doing what she did. I re-assured her that it was far and away the best thing to do. Then she came up with another suggestion. A couple are moving to Los Angeles and they can't take their cat with them, so they are looking for a new home for her. And so we are going to take her.

She is half Siamese/half Persian and apparently both halves are pedigree. So she's going to be utterly stupid but utterly beautiful. Kim says that Phoebe (although I think we may have to stick with the Saturn Starcat name, it's just too good to drop) is really affectionate and very healthy. She's another older cat, but the last time she was at the vets was just to get her annual shots and she got a completely clean bill of health then.

Kim has supplied me with a picture of her which she claims isn't a very good one, but I say that if this is a poor one, I can't wait to see her in person!

( Introducing Saturn Starcat II )

The major problem is when they suddenly aren't going to arrive any more.

We got a phone call last night to say that the cat we were going to be getting on Saturday (which Max had decided was going to be called 'Saturn Star-Cat' rather than 'Sandy') had had to be put down.

She had what had originally been diagnosed as a touch of arthritis in her hind-quarters. However, after a couple of weeks on painkillers, she hadn't improved and the woman who was looking after her took her to a different vet. He insisted on some new X-Rays which revealed that she actually had spondulitis (?) of the hips and a crushed vertebra. She was given a massive dose of steroids and painkillers and taken home again.

She seemed to improve over-night and so the owner took her back, expecting this to be a good thing. However, it appears to have been something more of a Catch 22 and she was told that essentially that meant that she (the cat) was basically beyond help as the painkillers would need to be given to her every eight hours and would pretty quickly destroy her kidneys anyway. So, the decision was made that as Saturn had been basically in constant pain (which no-one realised) and it would only get worse, the best thing for her would be to have her put to sleep.

This is, obviously, a little upsetting, and we don't know what Max's reaction will be as he was really looking forward to her arrival.

However, we may end up getting a cat anyway this weekend because Candy is going to check out the Newcastle Dog and Cat Shelter (Which I initially googled as Newcastle Cat God Centre. Where homeless Bast's go, presumably) and there are quite a few available. So, fingers crossed!

Anyway: RIP Saturn Star-Cat that never was.

As requested, some pictures of cats. And a couple of a non-cat, because he got in on the act...



(Just click on the picture - I've discovered Picasa's web albums.)

Down Among The Yla

New Words: 583
Total Words: 90074
Pages: 289

And another milestone - or at least multiple of 10,000 - is crossed.

We got cats!!! We went and got Connie and William yesterday afternoon and they are utterly gorgeous! William is the friendlier of the two, Connie is quite shy, although they were both settling and seemed to be quite happy to come and sit quite close to us by yesterday evening.

This morning, William seemed to be happy to see me and purred and fell over on his side to let me stroke his belly and gave me nose-butts whe I picked him up. So I think they'll be okay.

I spoke to Barbara, the rehoming officer last night about getting a cat and there were developments.

Connie and William (and no, desperance, they aren't great names, but really - 'Barry'?) are a possibility, although Connie is a bit shy, so she may not take too well to a three year old, Barbara is talking to the foster carer and will get back to me about them.

Holly and Bobbie are actually being rehomed separately (as opposed to what it says on the website) because Bobby (the mother) is apparently bullying Holly. Which is a shame.

So, that's where we are now. Barbara will get back to us over the weekend about C&W (Maybe we could call them Country and Western: "Yes, sir, we got both kinds of cats here"...) and then we'll have a home visit to check that we aren't cat strangling perverts (which we aren't. I, at least, am a different sort of pervert all together and it doesn't involve cat-strangling in any way). So, hopefully, if things go well, we could have pussies by next weekend.

Candy and I have decided that this year, we're getting each other a cat. Initially, we were just going to get one cat, but now it rather looks like we're going to get two.

After extensive research, we've chosen these cats, or at least, we hope to be able to choose these cats - we have to talk to the Cat Protection League re-homing officer and have a home visit and things like that, but I'm confident it will all be good.

A back up, will be this cat and her daughter.

Hopefully, it'll all go through in the next week or so.