We won't tell you about the horrors of trying to get them into their cat baskets, or the astonishing amount of wah-ing they did on a 5.5 hour drive. But we got them there, and as you can see, they are looking very stressed indeed in their new home. They are perfectly happy with Clare, although less sure of Harry; he tends to flail and make noises in an unpredictable manner.

On their first night, they knocked a plant pot over and deposited earth all over the floor, and on their fourth night they found the Christmas turkey carcass and ravaged it, so we think they're doing fine.

We shall miss them more than we can say; not every household has a feline walrus of lurve ... but they are happy, Clare is happy, and the whole dynamic of the Tribe has changed. I'll be writing more about that later.

I wandered into the living room to see who was in, and was somewhat taken aback when Pete ushered a very large golden labrador through to the back doors and down the garden.

the dog had scoffed an entire tin of cat fud, and seemed not at all bothered about being a) in someone else's house, and b) discovered and c) adrift in a sea of felines.

no collar, so we have no idea where he came from, so we threw him out and shut the back gate - we don't normally bother, as we back on to a small cul de sac.

things are expensive enough feeding the Tribe, without having to cater to a sodding great dog too!

it wasn't Esk, but it's very like her, don't you think?

Pete has a far stronger stomach than I, and usually cleans up these leavings, thankfully. I remarked to him that we only needed to find a small furry corpse for the full set; he pointed out that a large furry corpse would do just as well.

half an hour later, I found it. By treading on it (euwwwwww). Cats ... what are they *for*?

"who was that?", I asked Pete. "Dunno", he said. And just as it dawned on me that we don't have any large orange and white cats, I heard the sound of a Very Cross Esk from the hall.

on further investigation, it turned out the large orange and white cat was actually a small orange and white King Charles spaniel, who was quite merrily investigating the front door, while Esk growled at her.

Pete picked her up and carried her down the garden to the road, where her owner was rather anxiously looking for her. Esk is still in a strop.

much cleaning up and recabling has ensued, and all that seems to have suffered is the hard drive in Pete's machine, taking out some clusters on his VMWare partition. When we find out just which cat it is, they're dead .. (yes, Esk, we mean you).

which is why, just after Pete put his espresso on the top of the cupboard, Zool took a flying leap at it. The mug landed in the bin (which had its lid off and its bag out, as it had just been emptied), and was miraculously undamaged.* The coffee went over the cupboard, in the cupboard, in the bin, down the dishwasher, down the fridge, over the microwave, on the opposite wall, together with a substantial puddle on the floor. Curiously, we mopped up far more coffee than was ever /in/ the bloody mug.

*which is more than can be said for my favourite tea mug, which was terminally broken when she knocked it off my desk while descending from my monitor.

after a short time, Esk was sitting on the speaker, Ig was perched on the top of the window frame after having tried to escape through the fanlight. Again), and Mus was nowhere to be seen (forget Ptep in this scenario - it involves energy. He doesn't do energy). and in came a moth. Through the aforementioned window.

cue Ig and Esk into instant concentration. The moth fluttered round the lampshade for some while (it seemed like minutes, but it was probably seconds - time slides into slow motion in such situations). Mustrum appeared from nowhere, and jostled Esk for the space on the speaker (the other speaker is a long way from the window).

three furry heads moved as if on strings. The moth continued to flutter. The heads continued to move. the moth crashed into the window. Ig and Esk moved as one cat to the windowsill. The moth is deceased. Various cats are frustrated.

she was a very poorly cat indeed - having thrown up several times in the night, she was having trouble with her throat. It looked to us as though was some sort of obstruction there, stopping her from breathing properly - she was gagging constantly, and obviously very distressed.

I woke Pete, and we sat with her until the vet opened, and promptly delivered her down there. he thought that she might have a piece of grass stuck somewhere, and kept her in in order to give her an anaesthetic to check her out thoroughly. We spent a very anxious day waiting to hear from him, and when he phoned at about 4 p.m., he said that he hadn't been able to find any grass or any other obstruction, despite having taken some x-rays, but that there were some places that he couldn't see, and there might be something there . . . There were also a lot of follicles at the back of her throat, so she's had a huge antibiotic hit (with several days more doses - oh joy :), and we took the opportunity to have her microchipped while she was there.

[update] we tried giving her the antibiotic solution. Honest we did. She threw most of it straight up on the living room carpet, and then withdrew to the patio where she disgorged the rest of it, and she ended up with a pink foam moustache. It hardly seems worth bothering with any more. pesky cat . . . :)