Following the cat saga taster from my last post here is the full blown version.

Way back in January I heard a baby crying outside our front door. The baby turned out to be a little cat. It was thin and obviously really hungry.

With her territorial instincts firing on all cylinders Miss Molly was at the door in a flash, hissing and growling, her whole body from the hair at the bottom of her ears to the tip of her tail now twice the normal size. I had a feeling this relationship was going to be doomed from the start and a loud voice inside my head kept shouting over and over “Don’t feed it, whatever you do don’t feed it”. I fed it.

It was an affectionate little thing and desperately trying to come into the house so I assumed it was someone’s missing pet.

I went to the local mayor with posters and asked round the neighbouring villages but no-one recognized or came to collect her and a visit to the vet revealed that she wasn’t microchipped so I was legally free to claim her as our own.

I was tempted and we fell into an easy routine of the little cat sleeping in the locked barn while Molly went out in the mornings and once Molly was back in the house I would let the little cat out. For weeks she sat on the kitchen windowsill every night purring seductively and looking in with huge pleading eyes.

Molly would not be moved though and relented only just enough to sit on the opposite side of the double glazing without hissing and spitting but any unplanned encounters outside was all out war.

Keeping the peace by avoiding all eye contact

I knew this was going to be impossible to keep up long term and I finally convinced myself that the best thing would be to find the little cat another forever home. It wasn’t that easy though and even after a few half hearted & unenthusiastic attempts my search had drawn a blank.

After a week or two I noticed the little cat wasn’t quite looking or acting her usual self. It then suddenly dawned on me that she must have been flaunting those huge eyes and purring seductively elsewhere with a lot more success than she had had with Molly… yes, Google confirmed it. She’s having kittens. That makes two of us. It will be well nigh impossible to re-home a pregnant cat.

The vet suggested a visit to “assess the situation” and an ultrasound scan revealed at least 4 little beating hearts. The vet was grinning from ear to ear with a gleam in her eye that all but announced ” Congratulations Missus you’re having quads!!” Eh, didn’t she know this was no laughing matter and that Amar certainly wouldn’t be playing the doting Dad? Nope, as far as my husband is concerned this is my bed and I’ll be lying in it on my own.

I know that this is the last thing we all need right now including Miss Molly so how did I find myself not long afterwards looking at Mother & Baby cat kibble and staring wistfully at some tiny kitten shaped babygros? OK the babygro bit is a lie but I did buy the cat food…really, I did 🙁

So what now?

Various plans have been suggested from a variety of sources…

• Plan A : Sterilise the cat while pregnant thereby killing two birds with                   one stone so to speak. Too late for that, thank goodness as I couldn’t have done that.
• Plan B : Let her have the kittens and take them immediately to the vet                 to have them put down.This is only marginally better than                     drowning/suffocating them at home which a lot of the locals here do. I won’t be able to do that either.
• Plan C : Let her have the kittens, keep them for 8-10 weeks and find                  forever homes for them all. This would be the ideal plan if a bit complicated given that I will still have to keep Miss Molly away from them all until the middle of June.
• Plan D : Morph into a demented eccentric old woman surrounded by                 cats while my better half calmly files the divorce papers.

*The little cat is up until now without a proper name – it wouldn’t be good to get too attached now, would it?

Well, another 4 weeks have past since I was last here. I’m consistent if nothing else! No great excuse this time I’m afraid: no missing blog posts to rewrite, no spectacular technological meltdown to use as a scapegoat…no, just the trials and tribulations of daily life unravelling its knitting and us going round picking up the stitches. That takes up a surprisingly huge amount of time…..the knitting pins around here are fairly long.

Most of our time has been taken up with La Tour de Genèbre. We’ve had a fantastic two weeks of early Summer temperatures so we have made the most of working outside. The hedges have been planted and the grass at the front of the house has been scarified ready for the new seed.

A friendly neighbour was kind enough to lend Amar his tractor so he could move the huge mound of earth before we dig the hole for the swimming pool next week and pointing the walls was almost a pleasure in the warm sunshine. Amar learned a new technique here – filling over sized builder’s piping bags with mortar and piping it straight into the joins. A lot quicker and hardly any waste…and it took him right back to his restaurant life…happy days!

And at last, after waiting what feels like forever, I managed to start painting the bedrooms. I have also learned a new skill – balancing on 4 metre high scaffolding, painting with one hand while simultaneously clinging on to the beams with the other in a rather monkey-like fashion. I have also learned that if there are no beams to cling on to the legs turn to jelly and vertigo sets in causing all painting activity to slow down to an unproductive rate which is very inconvenient. I do have a photo but the angle is such that it’s probably best not unleashed on the World Wide Web!

All the walls and floors are back in place, the wiring for all the lighting has been fitted, the bathroom floors have been concreted and we have also finally chosen a kitchen!!! After much deliberation and procrastination, mainly by me I hasten to add,we finally settled on a simple Shaker style design in ” coquille d’oeuf ” which is literally translated as Eggshell but is really a taupe/mushroomy cream colour. Another few ticks on the To Do list!

Meanwhile back at Les Crouquets the usual pre- season activities are underway. Cleaning, tidying, repairing..all the necessary but unexciting stuff which goes on behind the scenes. Better to move on to more stimulating topics of conversation such as naming hens.

After reading the Bingo Wings post Joanna from Multifarious Meanderings kindly suggested Diesel as a name for this feisty bird – it fitted the theme and very nearly stuck but Emma reckoned that something so aesthetically challenged really deserved a sexier name to help boost its ego.

Alistair volunteered that Marilyn Munroe was famous for her naked neck (was she????) and a quick search confirmed that yes, this would fit the naming scheme, so Marilyn it is!

Yes it fits the theme!! Photo credit www.glamzzle.com

And finally, my next piece of knitting has unravelled so much it warrants a post all of its own which will no doubt follow in due course – here’s just a little taster. Our Facebook friends may remember a post from January when this gorgeous little cat turned up at Les Crouquets thin and hungry – yes, I fed her. Big mistake. Huge mistake of Pretty Woman proportions in fact. Miss Molly is not happy and now this cute wee thing is having kittens – literally. So am I.

Go on , I dare you to resist that little face!

I need a cat expert – and fast – who can tell me how to get a 7 year old, very territorial cat to accept a younger, pregnant cat while dealing with the prospect of half a dozen kittens, 7 gites, a new house and a husband who looks like he may well have me psychologically tested for even contemplating that we can keep her….yep this may indeed be a few dropped stitches too many….