The Little Gems Fly the Nest

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After a very busy few weeks, we finally got to the part of fostering that I dread - the Gems are 8 and half weeks old and are ready to be rehomed.
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They are fully weaned now, just sneaking a quick drink from mum when she isn't looking, but she is fed up of it all now and is getting a little aggressive towards them when they try, so that treat is fast coming to an end.

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They have so much energy they wear both me and themselves out. After tearing round the house for an hour or so they all collapse in their various favourite places and sleep for hours.

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I love it when that favourite place is in my arms....
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They all have completely different personalities. Some of them dream of modelling...
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Others just want to be like their mum...
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and others just spend their time daydreaming of all the mice they are going to catch...
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I'll miss them but it will be nice to be able to have a whole cup of tea to myself again!!
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History of Cats - The Cat in the Barrel

3. Fastelavn - Norway's Easter Festivities

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Fastelavn is a carnival that takes place in Norway 7 weeks before Easter. It is similar to Halloween in that children get dressed in costumes and collect sweets from neighbours. Lots of party games are played, and one of the most popular ones involves black cats.

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A barrel decorated with black cats is hung up and filled with candy and oranges. Children take turns to hit the barrel with sticks, very much like piñata. The first to break the bottom of the barrel and cause the candy to fall out is named Kattedronning - Queen of Cats. The one who knocks the actual barrel down is called Kattekonge - King of Cats.

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Of course, as is often the case, this game is based on more serious traditions. Black cats have always been a symbol of bad luck or evil, and in the 15th and 16th centuries a real cat would be placed inside the barrrel. The Dutch Farmers would then beat the barrel with sticks and clubs until the cat fell out, and it would then be chased by all the villagers and, if caught, beaten and often killed. This was superstitiously thought to safeguard them from evil and chase the bad luck from the village.

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It wasn't until the end of the 19th Century that the cat was replaced by a drawing and it became more of a children's game than a serious event.

Other traditions include Fastelavnsris which involves children flogging their parents to wake them on the morning of Fastelavns Sunday. They use bunches of twigs from fruit trees decorated with feathers, egg shells, storks and little figures of babies or wound with crepe paper and covered with candy. This probably comes from an old fertility ritual and has been absorbed into Christianity to fit with the Easter celebrations.

Hidden Treasure

I've looked after many kittens and cats over the last few years, but the excitement of seeing these tiny creatures progress from being completely unable to walk or do anything for themselves to independent strong-willed mischief makers never fades.

The Little Gems are 3 weeks old today and have just started to find their feet. They are turning into chubby little girls with loud voices and an insatiable hunger. Here is Emerald, she loves having her tummy tickled and was the first to start playfighting her sisters.

Their heads are still too heavy for their bodies so they bob them up and down as they try to walk which is really funny to watch. They can't quite focus on items yet, but when I talk to them, they look up and start to crawl towards me. Above is Garnet - very difficult to photograph her as she is totally black. She is the shy girl of the bunch but looks intently into your eyes as though she's trying to read your mind.


This is Quartz, the runt of the litter. She is about a week behind the others in weight, and quite noticeably smaller than the others. I was quite worried about her a week or so ago as she was always the one pushed out when the others wanted to feed from their mum. I often walked in to find the other four feeding and her asleep at the side of them. So for a couple of days I would move the other four into a different room for 10 minutes or so to give her time on her own with her mum. Her weight started to pick up and now, although still small, she has become much more feisty and fights for her spot at the dinner table much more successfully.

Here is Amethyst, the biggest of the babies. She is the leader and loves cuddles when her mum isn't looking. She has big blue eyes and tries really hard to focus on your face when you talk to her.

And here is Topaz. She looks very much like Charlie Chaplin and is the comic of the bunch. She seems to go into deep thought when you talk to her, and was the last of the babies to get the hang of walking. But she was the first to try playing with toys and to turn on her back to have her tummy tickled.

I hope I have the opportunity to look after kittens like this many, many more times. It really is a privilege to be part of this and I intend to make the very most of it each and every time.

History of Cats - Maneki Neko

2. The Japanese Bobtail

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The Maneki Neko, or Beckoning Cat, can be found in many homes and businesses and Japan. The left arm raised supposedly attracts customers whereas the right arm attracts money. This makes it the logical choice of ornament for shop owners. They are often made of ceramic and are sometimes used by children much the same as piggy banks are used in Europe.
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The Maneki Neko are actually depictions of the Japanese Bobtail, a medium sized, friendly cat which arrived in Japan from China over 1000 years ago. They have a very unusual tail, about 4 inches long, that is tightly curled into a bob. They usually have 3 or 4 kittens and compared to other breeds, these are bigger, healthier, and walk earlier with fewer diseases. They are talkative cats and are capable of nearly the whole scale of tones. They are known for almost always speaking when spoken to. (I soooo want one!!). They are very human and family oriented and are very easy to teach tricks.

There are several stories as to the origins of the Maneki Neko ornament, my favourite being the following: - A very poor monk lived in a poverty stricken temple and shared what little food he had with his beloved bobtail cat. One day a wealthy lord was caught in the rain near the temple and sheltered under a tree. He spotted a cat in the entrance to the temple beckoning to him. As he approached the cat the tree he had been sheltering under was struck by lightening and fell.

Grateful to the cat and its owner, the wealthy lord became patron of the temple which soon became prosperous. When the cat eventually died, the image of the Maneki Neko was made in its honour and quickly became the symbol of good fortune.

The temple still stands and its walls are adorned with many pictures of cats, and owners of lost or sick cats often visit the temple with prayer boards to this day.

Six Little Gems

I'd like to introduce you to Marina and her 5 little girls, Garnet, Amethyst, Emerald, Topaz and Quartz. Garnet is completely black, the others are like feline Dalmations and I have no idea how I'll ever tell them apart when they get older!

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The reason I have them is quite a sad one really. The Little Miss kittens were ready to be rehomed, and the RSPCA, knowing how much I am longing to see kittens being born again, asked if I'd like to look after a Persian cat who was about to give birth.

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Because the previous kits had had a cold, my fostering room had to be disinfected and left for 48 hours before she could come to me. Unfortunately that very night she went into early labour and the kittens were stillborn. I'm very, very grateful that this happened at the RSPCA centre as she was in the best place possible and she would quite likely have lost her own life if she had been at my home.

But she has survived and she will now be neutered and rehomed. And as my home was ready and waiting, Marina arrived on Thursday along with her lovely 4 day old babies. She is a very gentle loving mum who very rarely leaves the kittens, and I think we will have lots of fun bringing them up together over the next 8 weeks.

Snotty Noses

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The kittens are still recovering from their colds. I have never seen cats with proper snotty noses before, but I've felt like I've had 5 two year olds this week. Trouble is when you wipe kittens' noses you can't tell them to blow, they just look at you as if you've gone even madder than normal!


I felt really bad for them as they have had a really bad dose of it, and I resorted to putting Vicks on towels on the radiators to try and clear their noses. The illness hasn't affected their eating or playing though, and my poor old curtains which have lasted through multitudes of kittens have really suffered through the clambouring and climbing!
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Because they have colds they are not able to go back to the RSPCA to be rehomed in case they pass their germs on. This means they are much later going back than they should be.

Because it's only the beginning of the kitten season they will still find homes really quickly as anything under a year is snatched up at this time of year. But I do feel as though their future owner is missing out on the very best of times.

I don't think you can beat the feeling you get when you are walking in from a hard day at work and open the door to be greeted by 5 eager little faces all absolutely ecstatic to see you and the melody of purrs when you sit with them to play. Who can be stressed in the midst of simple pleasures like these?
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History of Cats - The Black Death

Due to my love of all things feline, I decided to do a bit of research on the history of cats. I am no historian and rely on the internet for my facts - please forgive me if I've made any glaring mistakes :)

I hope you find the results interesting.

1. Cats and the Black Death

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The Black Death or Bubonic Plague raged throughout Europe during the early 14^th Century and hung around until the 19^th Century. Around a third of the population of Europe died..

Before this time, cats had been associated with Satan and witches, many seeing their aloof nature and the fact that they were independent, not subservient, as proof that they were in league with the Devil. Pope Gregory the IX had stated that cats were "diabolical" in the early 13th Century and it became a very popular pastime for cats to be killed en masse. Their population levels dropped significantly.

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When infected rats started to arrive in grain cargo from Asia, they flourished due to the lack of predators, infecting more rats and increasing in population. This is considered by some to be a large factor in the spread of the disease.
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As the plague gained strength, the cat started to be associated with God’s wrath against sin, and even more were killed in the hope of appeasing God and stopping the plague. Dogs were not safe during this time either, and they also started to dwindle in number. Ironically, the very creatures that could have helped contain the disease were blamed and killed.

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The Old and the New

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It's been a very busy week in the JoeyGrey household. The mum cat started sneezing last week, the day after my last blog post, and it gathered momentum until she was constantly sneezing by the evening. She had no runny nose or eyes, so I wondered if perhaps she was reacting to my automatic air spray rather than getting cold or the dreaded cat flu. So the air spray was demoted to front room duty, but by the next morning one of the kittens was sneezing too.

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A quick call to the RSPCA and they came to fetch them and zoomed them off to the vet. The vet allayed my fears of cat flu and said mum just had a bit of cold and need antibiotics. The kittens would get the treatment through mum's milk, so nothing too terrible.

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The RSPCA close at 4.30pm and I work till 5.30pm, so couldn't meet them at home, therefore they brought the cat and kits to my work. I had to leave the office for 20 minutes so left them in my colleague's capable hands, safely in their cat baskets but with lots of attention. When I came back into the office, there were 5 other people laid, sat and crammed into different nooks and crannies in my office, all with a kitten on their various laps and chests and mum cat strolling round the office desks and laying happily on my work!

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Everyone spent a very pleasant hour doing absolutely no work whatsoever and the kittens got more attention than they've had in their whole 6 weeks!

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When I got them home I got another call from the RSPCA to let me know that Thomas had been reserved and was off to his new home the next morning. I was a little choked up but so very pleased for him that he had been picked out so quickly and was off to his new life. It makes it all worthwhile.

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A Pile of Kits

So, I've had the kittens for a full day and they really are the cutest little things. They are quite small for their age - they will be 6 weeks old on Thursday - but what they lack in size they make up for in energy. They are just at that age where they are chasing things and tumbling over each other and doing the sideways crab-walk attack on their mum's tail.
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For all their energy though, they are very chilled out kittens, just like their mum. It's the first time I've seen this many kittens happily take feeding time in shifts. When I go into them, there are often just two feeding and the others are either happily playing or sleeping in a pile until it is their time.

Whenever I get new kittens to look after I bring down the basket of toys for them. They get a couple of days to explore it and decide which are their favourite and then it gets reduced to a smaller more manageable basket. Their favourites this time are a piece of netting that they pounce on and hide under and the tunnel, nicely modelled by the little cherub above, at the moment named Kitten number 2.

They are great at climbing - here is Kitten Number 1 looking very proud after climbing Mount Cat Basket. And below is the Pile of Kits after a hard hour's play.

Out of the Frying Pan

So I went to see Thomas today. It was 5 days since I last saw him and I felt a lot calmer about the whole thing - I was pretty sure that Thomas would be settled and hopefully someone would have fallen in love with him and reserved him already.

When I got to his chalet there were people in with him. Thomas was in the corner being stroked and purring his head off. Once they came out I went in and sat with him. He wasn't clingy or needy like he was last week. I played with him and tickled his tummy and he came and sat on my knee. But then he wandered off and sat in the corner cleaning himself. I quickly realised that he wasn't going to be upset when I went, if he noticed at all. The people who had been looking at him before came back after 10 minutes so I left him and he didn't give me so much as a glance.

I had very mixed feelings as I'm sure you can imagine. I want him to forget me and to settle with someone new, but at the same time I did feel a little bit snubbed.

When I got back to the reception and told them what had happened they laughed and sympathised, and generally made me feel better.

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Then they asked how soon I would be ready to foster again. To cut a long story short, I left half an hour later with a young mum and her five x 5 week old kittens!!!!!

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