12 hours in the life of Puss

11:30 p.m. "Miaow, before you go to bed, could you just top up my food, water and milk and clean out my litter tray? Thank you very much."

1:30 a.m. "Miaow, I'm hungry, please get up and shake my food bowl (because although there is food in it, it tastes so much better once shaken)."

2:00 a.m. "Miaow, I'm thirsty, and there's no milk left, and water isn't good enough for me. I'm a princess you know."

2:30 a.m. "Miaow, I need some attention. Please let me in so I can jump on and off the bed a few times."

3:30 a.m. "Miaow, poo time, please get up and clean out the litter tray because it now contains kitten poo, and is therefore not clean enough for a princess like me."

7:00 a.m. "Miaow, I'm hungry, my kittens are hungry, miaow miaow miaow, get up now and feed us ALL."

10:00 a.m. "Miaow, what do you mean you have a deadline today? My kittens want to play on your laptop!"

10:30 a.m. "Miaow, I don't understand what you mean by 'get the f^,# out you mangy kittens' and no, I don't know either how they managed to press the hibernate button on your laptop twice in 10 minutes."

11:30 a.m. "Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........."

* * * * *

And so the cats are all asleep, which means I should be able to work on my assignment, but I haven't had time for breakfast yet, and there is a kitten asleep on my leg, and I don't want to disturb him because I'm scared he'll wake up and start hurtling around again, but anyway I need the loo so I'll have to get up at some point, but it's worth hanging on as long as possible to enjoy this blissful moment of PEACE AND QUIET which makes me want to join in and have a nap, but I HAVE A DEADLINE.....!!!!!!!.

If only it was always like this.

A month of kittens

This morning I woke at dawn to a faint sound from the next room:

“Mrrrrr, mrrrrr, mmmmmmrrrrrioaw?”

Puss, in a questioning voice. I pulled the sheet over my head. It was five o’clock and much too early to wake up.

“Miaow? Miaaaaaooow? Miiiiiaaaooooowww?”

It was getting louder. I curled up into a ball.

Then OMPH. She jumped on the bed, launched herself across me with a strong kick from her back legs, then started frantically grooming Patrick, using both paws to steady herself on his head as she licked and bit his hair, trying to make it a bit more straight and catlike.

I got up. She followed. We went back into the room with the kittens to find….no kittens.

“Miaow?” she asked.

“I have no idea where they are. Where have you looked?”

“Miaow.”

“Well did you try under the bed?”

“Miaow.”

“In the wardrobe?”

“MiAOW.”

“Behind the dresser?”

“Mi….aow?”

I scratched at the side of the dresser and was rewarded with a teeny tiny mew from one of the kittens.

“Would you like some milk, Puss?”

“…”

I gave her milk, she started lapping it up, and I went back to bed. Five minutes later she was back.

“Definitely not my turn,” I muttered into my pillow… Another few minutes of lavish grooming persuaded Patrick that this was indeed the case.

* * * * *

The kittens were born exactly a month ago today. There are seven of them, hence Puss is exhausted and a bit crazy. As are we.

Here is Puss showing off her fat belly 2 days before the birth:

And here they are a couple of hours after they were born (once she had a chance to clear up all the blood and gore):

For the first week or two they spent most of their time either feeding or sleeping. Puss generally put them all in a big pile to sleep – a nice easy way of looking after offspring!

They have been growing so quickly. After just a week you can see how more squashed they are when they line up to feed…

…and after two weeks she started to be absolutely mobbed by them.

In the fourth week they got brave and started to explore. They all have such different ‘puss-onalities’.

This is Spot, the runt of the litter.

Little Tabby - a bold explorer

Tubby Tabby - TROUBLEMAKER!










More to follow...

Update on Puss

Puss the Princess Cat (see alert issued here) is well and truly back, and has moved in with us.

She appeared on our doorstep a couple of weeks ago, and stayed for a few days.

Then one day I went downstairs and found a tiny kitten huddling on the doorstep of a flat on the floor below, where Puss's 'main' owner used to live. Said owner fled the country at the start of the revolution and is yet to return.

(On a side note, he is American, and the US State Department is still warning against unessential travel to Egypt, which is bizarre. The UK Consul General, however, says "our analysis is that you are as safe in Alexandria as you would be in any other Western European city, such as London or Paris." On the one hand, strange advice from the Americans which bears no relation to what it's actually like here; on the other hand, we get to keep Puss for the time being, which is nice.)

Anyway...the kitten. I brought him back up to our flat. He immediately ran up to Puss and suckled furiously. She washed him a lot. She seemed quite genuinely concerned about him, despite having been in our flat for 3 days, without any indication that she had a kitten elsewhere.

Kitten stayed for a couple of days then disappeared again. Eventually Patrick found out the full story: Puss had her kittens in a flat a couple of floors up from us, and they have all been found good homes. (The one I found downstairs had managed to escape one day.) When the kittens were about 6 weeks old, Puss decided she'd had enough of motherhood, and miaowed to get out. That's when she reappeared at our door.

She is now pretty much a permanent fixture.

As much as I love cats, I really didn't want to adopt one while we're here. I'm already sad about saying goodbye to her at the end of August. In the meantime, however, I'm loving the constant miaowing, scratching at furniture, demanding food, wanting to play at 3 in the morning, sharpening of claws on my leg, and suddenly purring loudly in my ear while I'm asleep...

It's a good thing she's cute!

Have you seen this cat?

We have had a visiting cat since we moved in. She principally belongs to an American man downstairs, but she is a cat of many friends - and excellent people skills. Over the Christmas holidays when we have been around more during the day she has dropped in frequently for a saucer of tuna and a cuddle – oh and the opportunity to sniff around for the perfect spot to have her kittens.

This is Puss on Christmas Day showing off her enormous belly:

The day before yesterday, however, there was no miaowing at the door; nor yesterday; nor today.

We prevaricated a while before going to knock on her owner's door, arguing over who would speak to him (bearing in mind that we don't even know the guy's name, yet his cat occasionally sleeps on our bed at night.) In the end it was a joint effort as only the cleaner was home, and so it took our combined Arabic skills to find out that she hadn't seen Puss for a week - but maybe she had given birth in the doorman's flat. 

We went to speak to the doorman. Now our doorman is a lovely man, but I really struggle to understand anything he says, except "Ahlan, ya helwa" every time he sees me. But what we gathered is that he hasn't seen her either, but that she has probably had her kittens somewhere.

So now we are waiting on tenterhooks for Puss to come back, hopefully with a little line of kittens trailing behind her. We'll welcome them with open arms...and open tins of tuna!

Cats of Egypt

If you are a dog person, please just indulge me on this one... If you are a cat person, welcome to my world :-)

Egypt is full of cats.  We went for a run the other day and met a group of 14 cats lounging around together in the sunshine.  Two of them were practically fighting each other to get our attention.

This post is a panegyric to the many and varied cats we have met over the last two months.  I have photos of some, but others you will just have to take for granted that they were totally awesome and unimaginably cute.

1. Sneeze Cat
     Age: <1 year
     Location: Dahab (Penguin Restaurant)
     Distinguishing Features: Green plugs of snot crusting up each nostril.

Sneeze Cat was a pathetic creature.  He was slumped around the restaurant panting pathetically. His fur was a little torn in places, and his nose was blocked up with crusty green snot.  Naturally, animals like that love me, and he turned out to be rather disgustingly affectionate.

At some point Patrick idly pondered where cats in Dahab get their drinking water from.  (The town is between the Sinai desert and the Red Sea, and even the water that comes from the taps is salty.)  So I took the saucer from my tea cup and filled it with bottled water.  Sneeze Cat lapped it up.  I refilled the saucer.  Cat drank.  Saucer refilled...etc.  All in all, that cat drank probably half its body weight in water.  Soon its breathing had slowed to normal and it had perked up considerably.  Then...

*Aaaaaaaa-chooo!*

The earth's axis shifted.  The Red Sea may even have briefly parted.  An enormous plug of green snot shot out of Sneeze Cat's nose and attached itself to my leg.  Sneeze Cat looked surprised, breathed a little, miaowed his thanks and trotted off.

No photo, I'm afraid.  I was too busy wiping up snot.

2. Big Tabby
     Age: >5 years (Probably into his 70s in cat years.  An old-timer.)
     Location: Dahab (Al Shams Restaurant)
     Distinguishing Features: Wily cunning

There were lots of kittens in the restaurant begging for food.  Each table was provided with a water spray to ward them off if it got a bit too much.  Big Tabby paid no attention to the diners or the kittens.  He just slept soundly on a cushion next to me.  Then suddenly he shot across the room and grabbed a whole pita bread from under someone's nose, and disappeared under a table at the other end of the room.  No nonsense.  No begging.  Just showing those young uns how it's done!

No photo, he was too fast.

3. Ginger Daddy
     Age: 4 years (Middle-aged, experienced, definitely still got 'it')
     Location: Siwa Oasis (Palm Trees Hotel)
     Distinguishing Features: Narcolepsy; a 'trophy kitten' following him everywhere

This is a cat that knows a good lap when he sees one.  Near-impossible to displace once in situ.  'Trophy Kitten' trots around after him mewing pitifully.  He mostly ignores her in his quest for a good sleeping place.

4. The cross-eyed cat
     Age: 1 year
     Location: Siwa Oasis (Café)
     Distinguishing Features: crossed eyes

Doesn't do a lot apart from sit around looking pathetic.  Not very co-ordinated!

5. Lame Cat
     Age: <1 year
     Location: Alexandria (Café near Swiss Canal Hotel)
     Distinguishing Features: pronounced limp

Lame Cat... how can I describe Lame Cat, other than awesomely cute.  The dumb look on my face says it all really.  Lame Cat had me entranced. We went to this café every day for a fortnight just to see Lame Cat.  Unfortunately one of the waiters didn't really like me being there so we stopped going.  I still miss Lame Cat :-(

6. Rafters Cat

     Age: 2 years
     Location: Alexandria (Swiss Canal Hotel)
     Distinuishing Features: Enormous wriggling belly

I have never seen such a pregnant cat.  I could feel her belly wriggling with kittens.  We called her Rafters Cat because Patrick had a dream that she was sitting on the rafters of our hotel room.  Then he woke up and was very confused to find that there were no rafters.  We were quite disappointed to leave the hotel before the advent of Rafters Kittens.

No photo, bizarrely!

7. On the seafront in Alexandria.


I'm a Tiger, look, it says so right here:

Awwww!

 

8. Fisherman's Friend

There are lots of fishermen along the Corniche (which is the name for the seafront).  Most of them have a faithful feline companion waiting patiently alongside.  Preferably sheltered from the spray, and letting someone else do all the hard work!

9. It's all in the eyes

There is a fluffy white cat in our building.  Last week she spotted Patrick and immediately ran towards him, miaowing and purring, and then followed him home. 

He noticed that, like him, she has one blue eye and one brown eye, and assumed this is why she liked him so much. Last night we saw her sitting outside with the doorman, and he said "look, she has the same eyes as me" and sure enough, he has one blue and one brown eye too!

10.  Sporting Cats

The following  are some of the reasons why we are now training for a sub-6 hour instead of sub-4 hour marathon.  It is impossible to keep running for more than about 10 minutes!

Do I really have to go back to England in 10 months time?!  Can't I stay here and adopt 17 cats?!!!!