Shows – Page 5 – cagaran.co.uk

Kitten Update Day 47, Eastern Counties Show & Stud Collections

The kittens continue to do well, and now have names. We collect the girls from stud, and Monty wins his first Grand certificate.

I can’t believe our ‘babies’ are almost seven weeks old already! Since they were managing to jump out of the pen anyway, we took one of the sides out of it last weekend. This gave them full-time access to the whole kitten room, and it didn’t take Lainni long to find the heated bed in the corner, where she has taken up residence.

Since my last post, order has been restored, and Lainni is now back ahead of target at just over 700g. The boys are only a few grams apart at just over 650g, but both are still running a bit behind target. They are all coming on leaps and bounds, though, so hopefully they will soon catch up with their sister.

The week following Grandpa’s death was a bit of a rush to sort out everything that needs to be done to organise a funeral. We buried him on Thursday of last week, following a touching service that I think was a fitting tribute.

We had arranged to collect Dàrna at the Eastern Counties show, which Steve and Thomas were doing with their own cats. Since we were going to have to go all that way to the show anyway, we figured we might as well make the most of it and enter some of our lot!

Unfortunately, the Eastern Counties was on the same day as the Scottish Rex show, which I very much wanted to support. A few weeks ago we were at a barbecue at Elisabeth’s, and I was complaining about not being able to support the show. She offered to take the Devons, saying that she could go straight up on the train from her house to Bearsden. I phoned her the next morning just to check that she really meant that she was happy to take them, and that it wasn’t just the wine talking! Thankfully, she confirmed that she was still happy to do so once sober!

Richard and I left home early on Friday morning in order to get to Elisabeth’s for about 9am to drop off the Devons before she left for work. We set them up in her ‘small bedroom’, and hoped that their presence wouldn’t upset her cats too much! It is surprisingly nerve-racking allowing someone else to take one of your cats to a show, even when you have complete trust in that person’s ability to look after your cats.

We went straight from Elisabeth’s down to Naomi’s to collect Kia, getting to her house at about 3:30pm. Thomas phoned me on the way south to say that Dàrna had pinked up and was starting to gain a bit of weight. She was also eating more than she had previously been doing, finishing her own dish first and then stealing from Pippin’s!

When we got to Naomi’s Kia was still in season, but had been mated every day last week, so that has hopefully been enough! Stacie (Kia’s breeder) lives about 25 minutes from Naomi’s, so we called in with her to let her see Kia again. In theory we were calling in just for a quick visit, but that never happens when we go to Stacie’s, because we always get talking. I think we finally left Stacie’s at about 7:30pm, and headed down to Tracy and Gary’s, where we were staying on Friday evening.

As always, Kia took the whole thing in her stride, settling straight into Tracy and Gary’s, and ignoring the grumpy noises made by Monty and Xaria in response to her arrival. She prowled around the two rooms, making sure that she knew every corner, then jumped up to give Gary a cuddle.

On Saturday morning we left Kia in the house and headed up to the show hall, getting there just before 8am. We had taken Xaria (chasing her 2nd Imperial), Breckin (chasing her 2nd Grand) and Monty (chasing his 1st Grand). After getting them penned and breakfasted, we went out to the car with Thomas and collected Dàrna, who wasn’t exactly thrilled at having been taken away from her ‘boyfriend’. We ran her back to Tracy and Gary’s, where she settled down on the sofa growling at Kia and us to show her disgust!

We had lunch with Tracy and Gary, then headed back to the show hall. By the time we got there, the Open results were all up, and I checked those while Richard went to feed the cats. Neither Xaria nor Breckin had won their certificate, but both had managed to win Best of Breed, and I couldn’t be all that upset about Breckin not winner hers, since she lost to the daughter of the stud boy whose kittens Dàrna is hopefully carrying! Breckin’s sister Lani was also there, and she won her 2nd CC. Monty had really done us proud, and won his 1st Grand – with two Reserve Grands already, from the Double show last month, he is doing incredibly well for an Aby of just over 13 months.

After the show we went back to Tracy and Gary’s for tea, before heading home. We couldn’t stay away for a second night because we didn’t want to risk the Devons upsetting Elisabeth’s cats by being there for a second night. We got to Elisabeth’s at about 1:30am, and by the time we had a hot drink with her, got the Devon’s ready and then did the journey home, it was 3:30am, and we more or less fell into bed after checking on the kittens.

They are now extremely active and playful, running all over the kitten room. All three are able to climb the stairs onto the window-ledge, and their various scratching posts. They can also now jump up high enough to grab the edge of the mattress, then hauling themselves the last bit onto the top of the bed. That means that when we wake up in the morning it is normally to find a trio of kittens wrapped around our legs!

They are all on solid food now, and Katie has started leaving the kitten room for substantial periods of time. She was out of the room all night last night, and then ran into the room to check on them this morning. Even after having her away from them all night, though, not one of the kittens tried to suckle when she did come back into the room. She only stayed with them for about 20 minutes, before asking to be let out again, and didn’t return to them until about three hours ago.

As the kittens have become more active, I wanted to have something to call them other than ‘blue-toes’ and ‘orange’. If we didn’t come up with something fairly quickly, they were going to be known by their colours forever-more! I am not going to register the names we have chosen for a few more weeks to give us a chance to find new owners, so that they can have the option to change them. However, subject to such changes, the names will be An-Sùlair (‘The Gannet’, because he LOVES his food) for Orange, and Aileag (‘Hiccups’, because he seems to get them after every meal). Their pet names will be ‘Sùlai’ or ‘Soolay’, and Alek.

Lainni looking at the camera	Lainni side view
Sùlai front view	Sùlai side view
Alek front view	Alek side view

The more the kittens develop, the stronger their individual personalities and preferences become. Lainni tends to run over to us whenever we enter the room, and climbs onto our feet. She usually purrs when we start stroking her, although sometimes she is too hyper for that, and tends to pounce on our hands instead!

Tiffanie kitten biting fingers — Lainni biting my fingers

Sùlai will run up to us and give a little miaow if we talk to him whilst looking at him. He likes to tuck himself into our sides, and is a real softy. Alek, on the other hand, doesn’t really talk much, and is much more independent than the other two, but if we pick him up and lie him on his back, stroking his head, he goes completely limp and starts to drop off to sleep. Very cute! He is also going to be a fantastic hunter when older, because he responds immediately to any prey-type toy, whereas Lainni watches it for a while first, and Sùlai tends to run and hide!

Apologies for the epistle, but hopefully it won’t be so long until my next post, now that the family drama is over!

H&L Joint Show & more stud drop-offs

Saturday saw the first double all-breed show, when the Humberside and Lincolnshire Cat Clubs joined together to put their two shows on in the same hall, on the same day. The big advantage of this, for exhibitors, is that cats could potentially bring home two certificates from the one show. Aside from that, though, there is obviously the cost saving in only travelling to one show whilst really ‘doing’ two. For us, there was an added incentive, that the stud owners whom Dàrna needed to return to were also attending and were prepared to take her back with them, and that the stud owner whom Kia was to visit lives fairly close.

Richard’s mum’s birthday was the day before the show, and the hall was in Doncaster, which is only about an hour from Loughborough, where his parents live. We therefore decided to combine the show with a visit to their house. Unfortunately, our cunning plan was somewhat dampened by the fact that Janet (his mum) was away at a conference for the weekend and only his dad was at home! Still, we had a nice meal with him on Friday evening, having left about lunchtime and called in at Naomi Johnson’s (Vervain Burmese, Asians & Ocicats) on the way.

Naomi has a boy, Mickey, bred by Rita Legget (Yesso Ocicats), who bred Breckin. In fact, Naomi’s boy is Breckin’s half-nephew, or something like that. He is a chocolate silver, and since his father is a blue, and his mother is a classic, he also carries dilute and classic pattern. Kia carries either chocolate or cinnamon, and both her parents carry dilute, giving her a 2/3 chance of carrying it also. If she does carry dilute, then a match between her and Mickey should statistically produce 1/2 spotted and 1/2 classic; 1/2 silver and 1/2 non-silver; 3/8 tawny, 1/8 blue, 3/8 chocolate and 1/8 lilac.

Naomi has enviable outside runs, and we took Kia straight out to the run next to Mickey, so that she could get to know him before she comes into season. When we opened her basket, she was straight out and had a good check around her new quarters and then started eyeing up the boys – Mickey on one side and Greg, the Burmese, slightly further down. It doesn’t look like there’s going to be any worry whatsoever about her feeling homesick, or failing to settle in, but what else would we expect from the sprite?

On the Saturday we arrived at the show hall just before 8am, although a slight detour into the wrong car-park meant that we didn’t actually get the cats in to vetting-in until about 8:15am. We are all so used the process that both they and we were sorted and breakfasted by no later than 9am.

The Dome in Doncaster is one of the show halls fortunate enough to have a balcony where exhibitors can sit to watch their cats being judged, so we made our way up there initially. The results boards were also up there, but for some reason they had all been crammed into one tiny corner of the balcony, which we all took one look at and said “this’ll be hell later”. Sure enough, by half-way through the afternoon everyone was tripping over eachother and the results boards and generally getting totally confused and fed up. Thankfully, someone eventually had the sense to move one of the boards out onto the landing, which made life much easier.

Since Breckin and Monty are both so young still (Breckin is just 13 months and 2 days today, and Monty is just over a week past his 1st birthday), I didn’t really expect them to get anything. They excelled themselves, however, with Monty taking the Reserve Grand in both shows, and Breckin taking Reserve in one show and the Grand in the other! The competition was tough in both cases, too, so they did really well. Xaria didn’t get anything in the Imperial classes, unfortunately, but she did beat a rather stunning boy for Best of Breed, so she didn’t exactly have a bad day either!

Dàrna wasn’t entered in the show, and the day was far too hot for us to leave her in the car (19.5°C when we left Loughborough at 7am!), so we had to leave her in Loughborough. Richard therefore had to leave about 12:30pm to head back to his parents’ to collect her. I think she had been spoilt all morning by having Bill (Richard’s dad) all to herself, and was in an exceptionally good mood by the time we handed her over to Steve and Thomas (Kagura Burmese & Asians) at the end of the show.

We have arranged to collect both girls in four weeks’ time, and fingers crossed that this time we have two expanding tummys, and not just one!

Lakeland Show & Kittens Imminent!

Another good day at the Lakeland Show, an enjoyable couple of days, and preparing for the imminent arrival of kittens.

The Lakeland & District Cat Club had their show in Kendal on Saturday, and we took Breckin, Xaria and Ali this year. Last year at that show, Tármus and Xaria both made up to Premier, and both that hall in particular, and Kendal in general, are lovely locations for a show, so we were hoping for an enjoyable day. This year, Xaria was looking for her first Imperial, and Breckin and Ali for Grands (Challenge and Mastercat).

As usual, we had packed the show case a few nights beforehand, so that we didn’t have a mad rush on the morning of the show. On Friday night, we also shut the three who were attending in the front hallway (with ‘facilities’), so that we knew we could find them in the morning. We had offered to take Xaria’s brother, Xander, in our car again, since he seems to do better when he’s travelled next to her, and this was to be his third (and qualifying) Grand, if he behaved well enough to win it. She was also glad to have one less basket to take, since she was also taking her stud boy, Teddy, one of her girls, Sophie (Xaria’s Grandmother), and one of her most recent litter of kittens, little Zach.

We had arranged to be at Elisabeth’s for 6am, so left the house about 5:15am, and had a good clear run through to Glasgow. We arrived a bit before 6am, and just in time to have a cup of tea! A good run South saw us arrive at the show hall just after 8am, which meant we were early enough to sail straight through vetting in: half an hour later, and there was a sizeable queue.

Breckin was a bit unsure to start with, because this is the first show we’ve had her at where we’ve not had Kia, Monty or one of the Tiffs to pop in the pen with her for the first half hour to help her settle. Margaret Rodger did say to me later, though, that she was absolutely fine when she was being judged (and that she’s gorgeous!), which is good to know! Ali was penned next to the gorgeous Agacat, owned by Steven & Stuart (Esanes Bengals, Pixiebobs & Maine Coons), who had taken Best Household Pet at the Nor’East a few weeks ago. We fully expected Aga to win, but losing is never a problem when you’re been beaten by something as gorgeous as him. As it happens, we were both beaten for the Grand Mastercat certificate by a ginger that we don’t know. Personally, I still think Aga should have got it!

The Sports Centre where the show takes place has a nice cafe upstairs, but it isn’t big enough to cope with the influx of exhibitors when the show ‘chucks out’, so we got up there just before 10am, to ensure we got seats (and bacon & sausage rolls!). We had managed to secure one of the window seats, which meant that I could watch Xander being judged (and Xaria, after that). Thankfully, Xander behaved impeccably, which meant that Elisabeth was able to come down from her panic station and actually enjoy the rest of the day! Xaria behaved beautifully, as always.

We then took advantage of our seats to mark up show catalogues, and also have another round of tea/coffee. By the time we finally went back down into the hall, Xander and Xaria’s results were up, and we were delighted to see that both had won their certificates. In fact, I checked Xander’s result first, and was so excited to see that he had won his Grand, that I forgot to check if Xazzle had won her Imperial! Elisabeth had been sidetracked by another of our friends, whose two Abyssinian boys had ‘done the double’ again, winning both the Imperial Grand Challenge and Imperial Grand Premier certificates. That meant I got to ‘break the news’ of Xander’s result to Elisabeth, which was quite a nice job, really! When we did look at Xaria’s result, we were delighted to see that she had also done us proud and won her first Imperial.

As already mentioned, Ali didn’t win the Grand Mastercat, nor did Breckin win her Grand. We didn’t actually expect Breckin to get it, though, because she is still so young, and the cat that did win it was the beautiful Freya, a Tiffanie girl owned by another friend, Sue Dykes (Kashi Tibetan Terriers). Freya is one of the most stunning examples of the breed that most people have ever seen, and is out of the stud that I had originally hoped to be able to use before we even got our first girl. Unfortunately, he is no longer working, so we just have to be content with seeing his gorgeous offspring at shows!

Once we were allowed back in to the cats, we did the rounds, telling them how clever they had been (all of them), and then gave them lunch. We then headed off for a leisurely walk in glorious sunshine, to find our own lunch. We couldn’t resist heading back to the same place as last year, the Natland MillBeck Ice-Cream Parlour. Needless to say, we all enjoyed ice-cream sundaes to finish!

When we returned to the show hall we went straight over to check the remaining results, and another of our friends came up to say that Elisabeth needed to go and check baby Zach’s pen. When we did so, we discovered that to top off the day, Zach had taken Best Foreign Kitten! The two Imp-winning Abys had also taken Best Foreign Neuter and Best Foreign Adult, so regardless of who took Overall Best Foreign, one of our friends had it! In the end, it was the stunning adult, Coen (Glendavan Roderick-Jaynes), who also made up to Imperial on the day.

Sunday was another lovely sunny day, and we spent the first half getting some of the garden back under control (two weekends where we were busy on the Saturday and then it rained on the Sunday, followed by last weekend at Kirsty’s meant it was needing the work!). The afternoon and evening were spent through at Elisabeth’s, where she was having her annual barbecue. Another delicious meal, helped along by Lenny Pontello’s barbecuing skills, and also a chance to meet some of Elisabeth’s family, as well as catch up with Lorraine and her baby, Lina.

This evening I have been out with my family to celebrate Kirsty’s and my birthdays. When the others decided to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, we discovered that the two names actually work quite well for joint celebrations – “Happy Birthday, Heather and Kirsty”! How we didn’t discover that years ago at our joint parties as kids, I don’t know.

Katie is really heavily pregnant now, and has become really proud of her tummy in the past 24 hours. She will roll onto her back to ask you to stroke it, which is something she’s never done before.

Katie's pregnant tummy

Before going out tonight, we noticed that Katie’s sides had relaxed off, which I’ve been told means that labour is starting, and she was being quite chatty today, so I think she’s going to go tonight. Her kittens are also being really active, although I didn’t manage to record their most active period because I was too busy watching it myself!

Katie's kittens moving around inside her

We filled her birthing box with towels before going out, just in case she decided to have her babies while we were eating, but she is still wandering around the bedroom happily now. In preparation, I’ve brought up the scales and a notepad and pen to record weights, and also a selection of nail-polishes to mark kitten toenails so that we can tell them apart. Wish us luck!

Durham County Cat Show

The Cagaran cats had a very good day at the Durham, winning two Premier certificates, one Grand, one Reserve Imperial, one Imperial and four Best of Breeds!

We were at the Durham County Cat Club show on Saturday, and had a FANTASTIC day! The most critical result being that Annas won her fifth Imperial certificate, making her the first ever Imperial-titled Tiffanie!! We took Annas, Xaria (competing against each other for the Imperial!), Coimhlion and Monty.

Annas with her 5th Imperial — Annas making up to Imperial

We had to be up at 03:30 in order to get down there in time. A good run as far as Berwick meant that we had time to stop there for breakfast (at MacDonalds, hardly the healthiest start!). We had a good onward run from there, too, and arrived at the Nissan Sports & Social Club in Sunderland just a bit after 07:30. We had taken a flask of hot water with us, so we were able to have a cup of herbal tea (no need for milk!) before taking the cats through vetting in.

Once the cats were penned and settled, and we had been ‘thrown out’ of the show hall for judging, we adjourned to the RACCS mobile (Lenny Pontello’s Alhambra) to watch a Top Gear DVD. I was feeling decidedly restless (the prospect of an Imperial title will do that to you!), and had checked the results board at least twice before any of our results actually went up.

Elisabeth had come in with me, and she checked the result for her stud boy, Teddy, whilst I checked for the Imperial result. The Imp wasn’t up yet, but Teddy had won his Grand, in spite of being fairly badly tarnished, so Elisabeth was thrilled. When I checked Coimhlion’s Grand result, we both fell about laughing, because she had actually been awarded the Grand, which I didn’t for a moment expect. Coimhlion was only entered because she absolutely loves going to shows. She had also taken the Best of Breed against a rather nice boy!

Coimhlion at the Durham Show — Coimhlion peering out from her Show Pen

It was another couple of hours before the Imperial result went up, and when it did, I struggled not to cry – not only had Annas taken the Imperial, but Xaria had taken the Reserve, which was the best possible result we could have hoped for. Monty had also had a good day, winning his third Premier certificate, making him up to Premier. To top that off, Xaria had completed her day by winning another Premier certificate, and all three had won their Best of Breeds.

Xaria at the Durham Show — Xaria with her prizes at the Durham

Monty at the Durham show — Monty looking for cuddles

Annas asleep at the Durham show — Annas sleeping behind her rosettes

After Xaria’s other Reserves, she has been grumpy for a few days, but this time she obviously knows she did a good job in ‘letting’ Annas have the Imperial, because she’s in a great mood today!

Nor’East Show and Pregnancy Update

Our Ocicats do well at show, and the Tiffanies show some more potential signs of pregnancy.

We attended the Nor’East of Scotland show today, and had a pretty good set of results, the most significant being Breckin making up to Champion (her 3^rd CC), and Kia getting her qualifying Merit (4^th from a different judge – actually her 6^th, I think). Jinny got her 2^nd GMC (Grand Master Cat) certificate, Monty got his 2^nd PC and Xaria took the Reserve Imp and another PC (her 14^th?). Call crashed and burned (3^rd in a class of 3), but we expect that when we take Call out – he was only there as the ‘free’ 5^th entry (Breckin was added later, after missing out on her 2^nd CC at the Essex).

Kia has started calling for the first time, which might be a further indication that the older girls are pregnant – she could have been waiting for their status to change before starting. I have honestly never heard an animal make such a strange noise: she sounds like a cross between a bull-frog and a rumbling tummy! The other cats all keep stopping what they’re doing and running along to peer at her whenever she starts, because they can’t figure out why she sounds so odd either!

Dàrna has started climbing onto, into or under everything in the house, as if she’s looking for something. I’m not sure if she’s searching for a nesting site, although it would be rather early for that. She’s never been up on the wardrobes before, and doesn’t usually go under drawers etc. but she’s been both on the top of and underneath the wardrobe and the chest of drawers in my room, and in and out of every high or low space in the house! She also appears to be suffering from ‘morning sickness’: she looks queasy from first thing in the morning until early evening, and the only meal that she’s eating properly is her tea.

And Down Again…

Our Tiffanies come home again (hopefully pregnant!) and we attend the Bedford Show.

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 4^thImp, 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.

A long way for a show!

Our Tiffanies go to stay with their first ‘boyfriends’, and some of the cats attend the Essex show.

Katie and Dàrna are now with their first boyfriends! Amanda (Colgan – Rushbrooke Asians, Burmese & Bengals – Cambridgeshire) phoned us as we were driving down on Friday, to say that there was going to need to be a change of plans. Katie was due to have been in the house with Jack, who lives inside because he’s never sprayed.

Amanda has a Bengal boy, William, who also lives in the house, but he was supposed to have mated one of her Bengal girls, and then been neutered. Unfortunately, the girl didn’t take, so William is still entire. Unless we wanted the risk of spotty babies, we were either going to have to forego this mating attempt (not really an option given which call Katie’s on) or use our ‘backup’ option of Katie’s half-brother, Charlie (Annas’s full brother).

This match should produce lovely, typey kittens, but would be too close for us to keep anything for breeding. Since we weren’t intending to keep anything from Katie this time anyway, that’s not really an issue, so Charlie it is!

We met up with Amanda at her work, because that’s just off the A14, so is a lot more convenient than driving across to her house. One of her colleagues came out to see all of the cats, so we had a good cuddle with them all in the carpark, and then Amanda took Katie away with her. Even though Katie came from there originally, and I know Amanda will take fantastic care of her, I still felt terrible letting her go!

We then headed across to near Bedford, where we were staying with two of our friends, Tracy and Gary. They have two black and white neutered male cats of their own, who had to move into the conservatory so our lot could have the livingroom and kitchen. We had picked up a sheet and some comand strip hooks on our way across, so that we could stop the cats seeing eachother through the conservatory doors and potentially getting upset. With the help of some handy clips that Gary had, we created a makeshift curtain across the doors, leaving their poor boys shut on the other side! Their house rabbit, Chloe, had to be moved from the livingroom into Tracy and Gary’s bedroom, because Monty had his face pressed up to the side of her cage and was shouting in at her – very funny, but probably not particuarly nice for her!

Dàrna wasn’t at all phased by the change of scenery, and after a quick check around her new territory, was straight up onto the couch for a cuddle with Tracy and Gary. Breckin hid under the vetbed in one of the baskets, only coming out for a quick meal. Once Chloe was removed, Monty slunk around the place investigating every corner, but rushing behind the couch if we moved at all. Annas was hilarious, because she walked around growling continuously, and then settled herself in Chloe’s play tunnel, growling at anyone who even considered entering!

We drove down for the Essex Cat Club show on Saturday morning, where we won the prize for the further-travelled exhibitors (442 miles to get home, according to the SatNav). It was worth coming, though – Dàrna made up to Champion (her fourth CC/Challenge Certificate, but only her third from different judges), and Monty won his first PC (Premier Certificate). Breckin’s breeder, Rita Leggett (Yesso Ocicats – Norfolk), was there with one of her girls, Dotty, who beat Breckin for the CC (Dotty was looking much more mature and had better spotting on the day).

Annas didn’t place in the Imperial Class (gutted, because she was looking stunning), but had a red card day apart from that, taking first in some big classes. The Imperial was actually won by the lovely Russian girl, Lolly (Troika Aurora), who is owned by our friend Judith Noble (Larksong Russian Blues & Selkirk Rex – Bedfordshire), and is the new ‘Sheba‘ cat. We last encountered Lolly at The Supreme, where Ann Bond-Wonneberger debated for ages between her and Xaria for the Grand, but eventually gave it to Lolly!

Dàrna is in with a stud called Pippin, whose owners are Steve Crow and Thomas Goss (Kagura Asians & Burmese). They were good enough to come along to the show and collect Dàrna from there, saving us the journey to their house afterwards. This meant we could just head straight back to Tracy and Garys. Just as well, really, since I had agreed to collect the results for Cat Planet, and had all of those to type up in the car whilst Richard drove back.

Today we had a fairly leisurely start, leaving about 9am. We had arranged to collect a stud cat for Helen MacLeay (Kruzinkal British Shorthairs, Kilmarnock). The stud’s breeder lives not far from Birmingham, so we met her in a services on the M6, and then met Helen just off the M74 this afternoon. Thankfully we had a good run North, so we weren’t too late back (although spending an hour or so chatting with Helen in the carpark made us a bit later than we might have been!). Annas has been wandering around shouting for the girls ever since!