Well, that’s the girls back from stud, so now all we can do is cross our fingers and wait! Very excited, but also rather nervous now that we have our first two potentially pregnant girls. We stayed with Tracy and Gary on the Friday night again (what would we do without them?!), and then drove over to Amanda’s on the Saturday morning to collect Katie before the Bedford show. Thomas Goss (one of Pippin’s owners) brought Dàrna up to meet us at the Bedford & District Cat Club show in the afternoon. When they got to the hall, it was 22°C outside, so she couldn’t stay in the car, and Thomas was also able to arrange for her to have use of a quarantine pen for a couple of hours. We can’t thank him enough for that!
We had a couple of cats in the show – Katie made up to Champion (her third CC) and Annas got her 4thImp, from John Hansson, no less (and beating Lolly)! Unfortunately John withheld the PC on Monty, but at least with John you always get a good reason – he felt that Monty needed to develop more ticking (which he says is always slow on the fawns), that he has a bit of growing still to do, and that he looks ‘a bit girly’ at the moment, which is common to early-neutered boys. Apparently that will come with time, but it is likely to be slower than an entire boy would be.
On Satuday evening, Tracy and Gary had a barbecue in their back garden, which was lovely. We shut our lot in the livingroom, and kept the kitchen door shut as a sort of ‘air-lock’ in between the conservatory and the livingroom. Then we sat in the garden with the conservatory doors open, which meant Tracy and Gary’s boys (Hammond and Jeremy – spot the theme?) could come and go and also get to spend some time with them and us.
The AGMs of the West of Scotland Cat Club and the Scottish Cat Club were yesterday afternoon, one after the other and in the same hall in East Kilbride. Since this is only a few minutes off the M74, we decided last week that we would go straight to the meetings, rather than have to get home and then retrace our steps by an hour to get back there. We had arranged to be able to move the cats inside out of the sun, but it wasn’t sunny when we got there, so we were able to leave them to sleep in the car. The sun did come out just in the break between the meetings, but by that time the carpark had emptied enough that we were able to move the car into the shade.
We had worried a bit about how the cats might all get on, having had the girls away for a fortnight, but we needn’t have. Katie slipped straight back into the ‘colony’ without a peep. Dàrna was a little growly last night, but without malice, and had quietened down again by this morning. Annas is thrilled to have ‘her babies’ back again – she’s spent the past fortnight pining for them! There’s lots of sniffing going on as they get used to eachothers’ scents again, but touch wood everything seems fine.