When We Were Kittens. David Greagg

so we feel much safer than we would if he didn't.

      19

      Man With Not Much Fur On His Head went away next morning but he left lots of munchies in our bowls. It was a boring day but we didn't feel too bad because we thought he'd come back again at night and he did and we did it all again. It's very comforting to have him and we purred at him.

      20

      It was a lovely day so we played for a while outside.

      21

      Just waiting now.

      22

      Still waiting.

      23

      Still waiting, but Man With Not Much Fur On His Head gave us some lovely food today.

      24

      Our humans are home!!! It feels like they've been away forever. I have really missed them. Man With Not Much Fur On His Head was very attentive and did everything he should have done, but this morning he moved out, so we waited by the front gate. And here they are again. I haven't stopped purring yet! No walk tonight, but that's usual. Man wants us to know that everything's back to normal and we won't try anything adventurous.

      25

      Our humans are still here. I keep dropping into our room and there he is, tapping away at his Picture Box. This is good. Short walk, just to get back into it, and nothing bad happened.

      26

      Tonight's walk was great because Man let me go at my own pace. I only wanted a short walk because I have to stand up on my back paws a lot to smell the flowers, which are brilliant right now. Mmmm!

      27

      Same as yesterday, only this time Man let me choose which way I wanted to go. It was very exciting to be allowed to choose, so I went around our First Walk but then I crossed the road and had a good explore on the other side.

      28

      My sister wants to know why she can't choose our walk. I couldn't think of a good reason why not so I said yeah, OK. Where do you want to go? It turned out she wanted the same walk I did, so it made no difference. Shadow didn't see it that way. She said it was better because she got to pick for once and didn't just trail after me all the time. I suppose that's only fair.

      29

      We met some dogs tonight but they were on a leash, so I just sat down with my paws out and guarded the way. My sister just disappeared into thin air. I have no idea how she does it. They can't even smell her which is just weird, because dogs can smell cat from a long way away. We know this because they bark at us even across the road when they can't see us.

      30

      I think we have mice. Shadow has been sitting in front of one of the Food Boxes all day. Every now and again I can hear scratching sounds coming from inside, and there is a faint smell of mouse in the air.

      31

      Definitely mice. They're driving Shadow crazy because she can't get in there. Eventually Woman opened the Food Box and there was a whooshing sound as whoever it was disappeared to wherever it is they go. Then Woman began to take everything out of the Food Box and put it on the table. There were a few mouse droppings, but more alarming was the number of packets with holes chewed in the bottom and funny powdery stuff falling out. This made Woman throw a lot of stuff out and put everything else in plastic boxes before she stuck it back in the Food Box.

      I'd like to see them eat their way through them!

      November

      1

      No I wouldn't. The little monsters have eaten clean through one of the plastic boxes! There is a little mouse-sized hole in the bottom of one now, and they've been nibbling away at our humans' food. Shadow and I have been looking hard at the Food Box but we can't see any mice. I don't know what's going on but Something Should Be Done About This.

      2

      Belladonna caught a mouse today. It was running across the Food Room floor and she jumped down from the table, hit it just once and it fell over. After that she lost interest in it, though my little sister played with it for a while. I couldn't see the point, but it seemed to make her happy and I imagine the mouse didn't care. Eventually Man found it and took it outside to do whatever he does with dead mice.

      Woman then took a lot of my fur (off the floor of course) and made it into a little ball. I watched her push it into a small hole at the back of the Food Box. I thought this was very clever of her, because any mice who are chewing through our walls to get at the Food Box will come nose to fur with something which smells of Me, and if that doesn't discourage them I don't know what will.

      3

      It's been pouring rain all day. I doubt we will have any walk tonight. But it's very snug and comfortable next to Man's pillow. Man cleared out our room today, and the bed is now on the side of the road. I looked at him and asked if we were expected to sleep on the roadside in the rain? I think he's playing a trick on us and that a new bed will arrive very soon. But hey: I'm just a cat and what would I know? All I can say is that there is too much spare floor in our room right now.

      We watched Man curl up on the bed in the TV room, but there really wasn't room for us there so I found myself a little nest in Woman's Other Room among all the clothes. There were too many things in there but I managed to find myself a place to sleep. I heard my sister pushing things onto the floor near me to make room for herself there too. Some of the things she moved were were quite loud, but the noises stopped eventually.

      4

      Man did something even more strange to our room today. First he pushed a broom around the floor, so we got right out of the way. He does this every few days and no cat likes to come too close to brooms. Shadow once tried to play with the broom when he was doing it but the fluff got up her nose.

      Eventually the Broom Thing stopped so we went back in to see what he would do next. And what he did was really bizarre. First he got some rough sandy paper and wiped it all over the walls so funny-coloured dust went everywhere. (We went away while that was happening.) Then we heard a new sort of noise and we went back in to watch Man put ordinary paper all over the floor! After that he brought a really big tin into the room.

      My sister got really excited because she thought it must be the biggest tin of cat food in the whole world. She rubbed up against Man's back paws and looked very interested, until he took off the top and showed her. It wasn't food at all but some peculiar liquid.

      She looked at him, then she looked at it again and then she looked at me. If this is milk it's a very funny colour, she said. I'm not touching that; it smells weird.

      I had a sniff myself and it didn't smell like food to me either. We were sure it wasn't food when Man got a hairy stick, dipped it in the tin and started putting the smelly stuff on our walls.

      Shadow sat underneath it, waiting for something interesting to happen. Of course some dripped onto her fur, so Man put down the stick, grabbed a piece of cloth and rubbed it off her. After that he picked Shadow up and locked her out of the room. She