What is she on about now?

Confused? You will be...........a handy strapline from the good old American series "Soap". 

So if you are not still dazed from all the comings and goings let alone the duplication of black cats in particular, you soon will be as I recount the latest additions and subtractions, comings and goings. Births too, but thankfully as yet no deaths.

 People will keep asking me how many cats I have. Officially I have 10 but it seems that at least another 10 would disagree at least in terms of who is responsible for feeding them. Before I digress into why I have just spent almost the entire morning in the vets, I think I should catch up with who's who again. 

I did consider writing a separate piece entitled "Just another cat with a claw" which can easily be recited to the Pink Floyd rendering about bricks in a wall. I do seem to have shed a bit of blood lately as it happens. I ended up at the walk in health centre, treated to a clean up, a tetanus jab and some anti-biotics thanks to Patch when I made one last desperate attempt to manhandle her, heavily pregnant, into a cage before it was finally too late, but she won. So I got some treatment and she went and had however many kittens again and doubtless all too soon I shall find out when they too come expecting to be fed. Mischief went missing for several days which was uheard of for him and a source of great anxiety because I won't ever forget Napoleon doing the same and when he did finally turn up he was so badly injured it was too late to save him.......anyway when the grey pest turned up again, we had a great fuss and a play until he clawed me a bit too boisterously, Sooty who has suddenly and determinedly starting sleeping on the bed and actually on me, let alone he purrs which I didn't think he knew how to do, all without a major cat fight on the bed too, well he stuck a claw in my lip this morning quite accidentally but no less painful or bloody for that. I came back from the vets (yes I will get to that in a minute) and Minx came for an unexpected cuddle, which ended badly since she didn't actually want to play as well and also drew blood. All of this on top of the many many evidences that Oliver 3 paws loves to play and uses teeth and 3 sets of claws in the process. 

So that is that aspect dealt with, and I must get on. 

If you've been paying attention you will recall I have Patch, the regular local stray, on my books almost as long as I've lived here and of course I hoped that she would progress to being stroked and handled rather than regarding me unwaveringly when she requires food but withdrawing sharpish with a hiss and a spit otherwise, and of course this is what she has taught the inevitable kittens she's produced and about whom I have written much already on the basis that the presence of absence of Sooty (first litter) caused enough uncertainty, and given how many of the buggers are black and white like their dad, well, that causes some confusion as well, especially given that Oliver 3 paws is also black and white, and is now allowed out to play or should I say to jump all over anyone he can and annoy the lot of them. Patch has a history of producing kittens around  the time I get back every September when I've not been here to do anything about it. She has also managed to have some every spring before I leave, and given that in the past this has been in a derelict building with no access but over the roof, it takes about 3 months before they are old enough to follow her. Meanwhile she demands extra food on account of ongoing feeding the kittens and so it goes on. So goodness knows what happened before I got here, or how old she is, or anything really - but to date she has lumbered me with 3 born Sept 2016 just after I got back, (Sooty, Sweep and Smudge) but only Sweep remains now, followed by last spring Cheeky, Sparky and Wonky, and again in September 2017, Itty Bitty Kitty who she dumped in my living room and who lived under the sideboard until his sibling turned up making them now Itty, Bitty, and Kitty. And whoever she just had now............

So since last September, the emphasis has been on trying to get those who need it neutered asap. That's not as easy as it sounds and I am pretty sure I mentioned this before - they need to have time at the vets whichever day I catch them, and that can';t be done to order, there are 20 odd cats and I only need to catch a few, and at least 3 days a week it can't be done anyway, and the rest I need to more or less stand by and watch and wait which is also not always possible. But great progress was made, Sparky ( a girl! thank goodness I got her in time), Cheeky, Kitty and then Bitty succumbed to the trap, and I hauled Horace off too (he's the black cat who moved in last summer and the cat sitters thought he was mine anyway) since he was easy get in a cat carrier. But of course that ups the numbers of ones I don't want in the trap and those who remain are the most wary or the least in evidence........