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.

It's just as well, really, that Iggy has reserves of gruntle almost as extensive as those he has of gravitas.

he has been signed off!!! Yay!!

well, he has to have some teeth out, which will happen on 24th November, but other than that he is a Well Cat. I think the vet was surprised to see how much weight he's put on.

he has been given more steroids, and some more of the pills that clean his liver bile, plus lots more of the potassium supplement, as they are concentrating on that now. And they've taken some more blood (vampires).

he's also allowed out again, so the door is open once more and he's ambling round the garden as I speak.

it's so lovely to see him slowly returning to good health - he's eating, putting on weight, and his coat is coming back to normal. We still don't know what the problem is/was, but he's clearly feeling so much better.

thanks to all for your good wishes :)

on the way back, I called into Waitrose and picked up emergency supplies of CHICKIE!, together with pilchards in tomato sauce, sardines in tomato sauce, and some pink salmon. Spoiled? - surely not.

some pilchards were offered, and the sauce has been slurped off. And 3/4 of a CHICKIE! fillet has been scoffed. We've been round the garden for a supervised stroll, and Ptep was *desperate* to go further, but he really isn't strong enough. And his legs are obviously very tired - being kept in a cage for five days would do that to a chap.

he seems somehow brighter this afternoon - both Pete and I think so, so perhaps he's finally on the mend.

in other news, the teenage girl from one of the neighbouring houses came round this afternoon, wondering where Zool was ... :( Apparently the pluth one used to go in through her bedroom window and sleep on her bed. I do miss her.

and I'm bit concerned about the Bengals - they've pretty much stopped coming in the house since Ptep came home. I think he smells different, and they can sense the illness. But we haven't seen PoD since Wednesday (although he's been gone longer than this), and no sign of Moo since Thursday afternoon. We seem to have done nothing but worry about cats for what seems like weeks ...

++++

Ptep slept on the bed most of the night, and this morning followed me round and actually *asked* for food. No matter that there was oxcheek, Whiskas, IAMs tinned, bikkit and some minced up roast beef with a tomatoey gravy for him to choose from - he wanted CHICKIE!, so that's what he got :)

he goes up and down, really - seems better in the mornings, but he's taking his meds fine, and whatever happens, he's getting loads of love and attention.

today's public thanks goes to Graham, who sent us a comfort pack containing Twiglets, Maltesers and a fridge magnet that says "People who don't like cats were probably mice in an earlier life" - we were quite overcome :) (so sorry, Graham, to have thought it was from someone else - [fx: embarrassed]).

onward and upwards ...

*however*, while he's by means a well cat, he is moving around the house - albeit like an old man :( - he's been outside to smell the fresh air, and crap in his favourite plant pot!, and best news of all, he's had three tiny meals of cooked chicken today.

I won't allow myself to hope until these bloody results come back, but he's clearly so much happier being at home, so I'm sure we did the right thing in bringing him back.

and he slept for part of the night on our bed between us, and for another part on my pillow, doing his well known impression of a walrus purring*.

while I'm here, a public thank you to Mary, who was staying with us for a few days. She was a tower of strength through all this, and we would have found things much harder without her, so thank you, sweetie :)

* *of course* they purr. It's a well known fact. And if they don't, they bloody well ought to.

[edit] and we're managing to get the five different lots of drugs down him at the right time each day, which is quite amazing really, for all of us.

OTOH, they have no idea why (beyond Siamese orneryness) he is refusing food - it's been at least 3 days, and likely more since he's eaten.

They're taking more blood to compare with the first lot and do more tests; red and white cellcounts and sending some away for FIP, feline leukemia and feline AIDS tests. If he has any of the latter three, we can really only say goodbye to him... :(

We'll go and see him and talk to the vet in person tonight.

what should have been a half hour trip (10 minutes journey each way, and 10 minutes in the surgery) turned into over two hours, as after blood tests and so forth, our vet decided that he needed to be hospitalised. The poor boy is jaundiced and very dehydrated.

so we hurtled (as best we could, in the rush hour) down to the animal hospital at Portishead, where they've had him in overnight on a drip. I've just phoned, and he's no better, which is really bad news. They're going to keep him in at least another day, but I suspect it's going to be a lot longer.

what have we done to deserve this?

someone left a dead mouse in the hall this morning.

Pteppic has started eating raw ox cheek [boggle], and managed to turn on the study hi-fi on Monday night, treating us (if that's the word) to a blast of Anne Widdecombe just after we'd gone to bed - the stuff of nightmares, that one.

how's that to be going on with?