Splot 2

A pattern is starting to emerge here...

Splot

This was originally going to be a snow joke until I realised that it work even better if I waited for the thaw. The original idea was that the cats would normally be able to walk over the top of a crust of snow, after the the top layer had thawed and frozen several times over the course of a few days, but if they concentrated their weight on just one paw, they'd fall through.

Mud

The thawing snow has left its usual mess behind. After last year's almost perpetual rainfall the ground is so sodden that there's nothing left for the snowmelt to soak into, so there are large areas of countryside which have essentially turned into bogs. Alexandra Park, down the hill from me, has a big events field which is now a thin membrane of grass stretched over a pool of liquid mud.

Billy and Annabel - day two

As I write this, Billy and Annabelle are scampering around the house, taking turns to chase one another up and down the hallway.

We've had several major achievements since I last wrote. First and foremost - they both found the litter tray and used it while we were asleep last night. This is a great load off my mind - we were worried they might adopt a corner of the living room and use that, but no, all is well. They've also worked out that their food tray is in the kitchen, and that there is a lot more room under the sofa than there is under the shelf unit. They have of course ignored the bed and the blanket we prepared specially for them.

Annabelle is proving to be the more forward of the two. She's become quite taken with a blue mouse which she's been beating seven bells out of.

Billy emerges from his lair

Annabelle and her mouse

Two cats, one mouse. Who shall be the victor? There's only one way to find out...

Annabelle, safe behind her curtain.

Millie Week 74: Mon 3 - Sat 8 February 1992

Millie's paper satchel is, of course, advertising the Daily Mirror, the paper the strip originally appeared in.

I'm not sure where the iconography of the heart being pierced by an arrow came from, but it certainly wasn't me, and I doubt it was Roger the cartoonist either. That strikes me as an addition made by a sub editor to underline a plot point that was perfectly obvious anyway.

Putting the milkbottles out on the doorstep - that dates the strip even more than the fact that no-one has a mobile phone or uses the internet. I'm sure there are still milkmen doing their rounds today, but I haven't heard the reassuring whine of a milk float and cheerful chink of bottles in the early hours of the morning since I moved to Hastings. Milk now comes from supermarkets.

Billy and Annabelle, day one

Here they are. They're very nervous at the moment - they'll take a while to adjust to their new surroundings and to learn to trust us - but for the moment they've taken up residence in the space underneath the shelves behind the TV set. Occasionally, when they think no-one is looking, they'll have an explore, but as soon as they hear anyone move, they're back underneath the sheving unit again. Above, you see Annabel, considering a trip to the unknown land beyond the DVD player.

And below, is Billy, in the same place, doing an excellent impression of The Cat Who Stares At Stuff.

Finally, here's Billy. He's working on the assumption that he can't be seen because his head is hidden.
More tomorrow, after the Millie posting.

Patiently...

I'm using the time honoured third-person interior monologue device here, as used by Snoopy in Peanuts and Garfield in, um, Garfield. As ever the war between cat and seagull contunues, and as ever the seagull wins.

Away from the strip, today's the day Linda and I will be welcoming Billy and Annabelle, two new rescue kittens, into our home. I'll have photos up as soon as they get here. In the meantime here's their back story...

Billy and Annabelle are brother and sister, they're five months old and they're black with white flashes on their nose, chest and socks. They come to us courtesy of the Blue Cross rehoming centre in Northiam. They were born to a feral mother who found a big converted oast house in the countryside, walked in through the cat flap and made her nest in an unused room. Believe it or not, it was five weeks before the mother and her kittens were discovered! This makes me ask two questions - did the owners of the house not have noses, and who lives in a house so large they don't notice a strange cat wandering about feeding her kittens?

The kittens have been at the Blue Cross since they were discovered (mum vanished as soon as people turned up) and the good people there have been gradually acclimatising Billy and Annabel to human contact ever since. On Friday, they come to live with us. They're still rather nervous around people, but they're gradually learning to trust us. Billy's the more outgoing of the two, he's not sure he likes being stroked yet, but scratch him on the head in just the right way and you will be rewarded with the loudest purr ever. Given the choice, Annabel will just be a shape underneath a blanket, we'll be sure to make sure she has one when she gets here, so she can emerge in her own time.