Our cats love it here. They love the open fields and unending territory it gives them. They keep fit by chasing squirrels (thankfully far more of a challenge than the birds we try to encourage!) They find the lambs entertaining and are very curious about the builders' machinery. They must have met next door's cats as we have heard several cat fights in the night, and one evening following loud cat wailing we saw 2 pairs of bright eyes in the darkness, staring from the top of a bank. At the bottom of the bank were our 2 black cats eyeing them very carefully. Gizmo was no where to be seen. Until a few minutes later when the eyes disappeared and were replaced with a bundle of grey and ginger rolling down the bank. The colours indicated that the bundle was Gizmo and the neighbour's cats.
Since then, the hierarchy in our house has changed somewhat. Gizmo is more than accepted into the house by Dobby and Yoda. They almost bow down to his presence, and allow him the freedom to go wherever he wants, and he occupies the highest sleeping point in the house in peace.
Occasionally we heard what sounded like loose slates sliding down the roof and falling off, but on inspection there was never anything to see. Having observed one of the cats slide down and off the conservatory roof, we now recognise the sound of falling slates is actually sliding cat! Roof top life is clearly something they have to get accustomed to, having not ever lived somewhere with roof top accessibility!
At the point of having nearly finished our new bathroom, one evening, I told Will I was about to get in the bath.
A finished bathroom!
Yoda must have been listening, as he quickly darted outside. I ran the bath and lay down with a plan to have a long relaxation. The relaxation lasted precisely one minute. I was distracted by an unnerving pair of eyes staring at me through the Velux window.
The accompanying “miaow” told me it was Yoda. The miaows became more and more sorrowful in their tone and the eyes had a very pathetic look. I was determined not to feel sorry for him, He could after all miaow at the front door where Will would let him in, but no, that would not get him enough attention. With my experience of dealing with attention seeking behaviours. I felt that ignoring the behaviour was the best tact. I tried. Even with my ears plunged under the water and my eyes closed, I could hear that mournful sound repeating itself.
I sat up but continued to ignore him. So... he decided to test my patience further by climbing up to the top of the Velux then sliding down the window, all four paws and claws outstretched and a loud mmmiiiiaaaaaooooowww as he slid. OK, so this got my attention in that I said “Daft Cat . I am not getting out of my bath for you” “Ah ha” thinks he … “I have her attention” So he repeated the performance again and again and again.
After a long (disturbed, unrelaxing) bath, I got out. Where was Yoda?
Miaowing to get in the front door!
I'm going to feed him to the sheep!
The accompanying “miaow” told me it was Yoda. The miaows became more and more sorrowful in their tone and the eyes had a very pathetic look. I was determined not to feel sorry for him, He could after all miaow at the front door where Will would let him in, but no, that would not get him enough attention. With my experience of dealing with attention seeking behaviours. I felt that ignoring the behaviour was the best tact. I tried. Even with my ears plunged under the water and my eyes closed, I could hear that mournful sound repeating itself.
I sat up but continued to ignore him. So... he decided to test my patience further by climbing up to the top of the Velux then sliding down the window, all four paws and claws outstretched and a loud mmmiiiiaaaaaooooowww as he slid. OK, so this got my attention in that I said “Daft Cat . I am not getting out of my bath for you” “Ah ha” thinks he … “I have her attention” So he repeated the performance again and again and again.
After a long (disturbed, unrelaxing) bath, I got out. Where was Yoda?
Miaowing to get in the front door!
I'm going to feed him to the sheep!
Gizmo uses the roof top walk as a short cut or look-out post. The black cats - they both use it as their very own Cresta Run. Always at the most annoying of times. Always just as I get in the bath, I have had numerous repeats of that previously described bath. I now ensure I whisper to Will that I'm going to use the bathroom. That tactic has given me some peaceful baths. Instead, they choose the moment I am drifting off to sleep and continue until I get up and let them in through the bedroom Velux window.
We love sitting in our front porch overlooking the sea, contemplating life, drinking coffee, while watching the wildlife and farm animals. We attract a different set of birds on our bird table to those in our previous garden, which is to be expected. These include woodpeckers, nuthatches, jays and gold finches, among others. The buzzards and seagulls choose to soar overhead. I guess buzzards prefer moving prey and the seagulls can't work out how to negotiate trees, as they swarm in their masses into the open fields at sheep feeding time. Our favourite visitor is a gold crest which frequents a small conifer next to the porch. On one sunny day, we thought it might visit but sadly it made no appearance. That evening we met a lady who was house sitting for our holidaying neighbours. She told us how that morning their cat had bought her a lovely present of some little bird she couldn't identify. She described it as being a tiny bird with a yellow crest! No wonder we hadn't seen the gold crest. We hoped there were others.
The next day the gold crest arrived!
Next blog - We attempt to learn the local language
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