2 New Little Fluffy Additions To The Family

For 12 months and what seems like forever, my sister Rebecca has begged Mum and Dad to have cats again in the family. I was 6 years old the last time cats lived in our house and Rebecca was only 2 years old. Since the end of July, Rebecca has been popping up to Orpington on the outskirts of London, with her friend to see a family who's cat gave birth to 6 kittens. After frequent visits since their birth on June 30th, they are now 8 weeks old and back on Sunday 31st August, 2 little ones moved into our house - "Stache and Dash".

Sorry for the long delay, but when you have 2 new black adorable and loveable kitty cats in your house, you're bound to be distracted far too much and stray away from plans and sometime even your stress from work fades away too. So this post is telling my history with cats and telling what the boys have been up to all last week.

First of all, you see when my parents moved into our house more than 2 decades ago, they had 2 cats (a brother and sister) named Boss (a white cat with a dark brownish patches over his ears, most of the left-side of his face and all over the top of his back and a bit on his side) and Zambooki (a black and dark tan tabby). I only have vague memories of having them around the house seeing as I knew them both up until I was 6 when they both passed away within the same year of old age. Sure it hurts me and Rebecca that we didn't get to know our first cats that well. But we still treasure their memory and always enjoy all the funny stories that the naughty duo would cause and were a real joy to have in our family.

My neighbour's cat - Fraser

My neighbour's cat Fraser (who looks exactly like Zambuki) is another cat who's had a deep impact on my life. However compared to their personalities, Fraser thinks he's king of the neighbourhood. When Boss and Zambooki were still alive, around a year or so before their deaths. my neighbour's cat would sometimes intrude our house and stir up fights with our loved ones. But soon after they passed away and as long as I can remember from the age of 12, Fraser soon started to come to our house and act as a cat of our own. He's lovely, very friendly and always likes sitting on my lap. However that all soon changed when we realised the little bas***d was "spraying" and marking his territory everywhere in our house and unfortunately... on my school uniform! My Mum could always smell a faint odour in the house and soon when we realised it was Fraser, he was banished from the house. But does that stop him from trying to enter the house, Nope!

This is an edited "Paint" picture from my original
Art work, I don't have an original photo sadly of Lucky.

So whenever he pops over, I head outside to stroke him for a while and if the weather's nice, I grab a chair and he jumps on my lap and falls asleep every so often, *sigh* too bad he never got taught in his previous house (before he was adopted by my neighbour) that spraying is bad, then he could have stayed in my house. One day about 5 years ago my Dad woke up one morning (when he was still a Postman) and looked behind the bathroom door and found a small Koi fish gasping for life. So he did the right thing, put it in a bowl of water and then later after work, took it around the neighbourhood and asked them if it was theirs? No one ever admitted it was theirs so we took him in and named him Lucky (for being lucky to survive). We knew it had to be Fraser and for the next 4-5 years, he's bought us another 12 Goldfish/ Koi fish! We had to go through 3 lots of fish tanks to fit them all in till one either died on the same day or over time. So now we have 6, but Lucky passed away back in June this year. Plus when we first had him he was Golden/ Redish but over time (like Zach, Cody, and Fiona) they all had a phase/ metamorphosis and almost became clear white and then regained a patch of dark orange/ red over parts of their bodies over time, weird right?!

Here's my GCSE Art Final Piece based on
my Fish in a Picasso style from his painting "The Sculptor".

He was the most special because he was used in my Art project in my Final Year of GCSE Art back at The Forest School and I did a Picasso style final art print on Lucky and Zach and was awarded an A, Oh Yeah! But I'll tell more about my school life someday in a huge post.
So anyway, after the 3rd tank we decided to leave them all outside in a huge black bathtub looking thong and continue to feed them everyday.

But enough about the fish, let's get back to the new little ones. Since Sunday 31st August, the little bros have been running, jumping, meowing and purring as they adjust to their new lifestyle in the Grahame household. I still see Fraser and give him equal love too, but we all have to make sure the kittens don't head outside for many months now incase he may choose to pick a fight with them plus they're not old enough to go outside yet.

Not to brag, but I think they like me the most as you can see from the pictures like the one at the top ha ha.
It's been a little tough at first with thinking up names for the boys, all of us have pitched names together. I liked cool brother names such as "Thor and Loki", "Anakin and Obi-Wan", "Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan", "Dash and Flash", "Simba and Mufasa", for laughs it would have been funny to call one "Commodore Fluffy Paws" but after second thoughts it doesn't sound proper when calling for them out loud at night. Honestly we were actually expecting the kittens to be a brother and sister. The sister was sold before we could take her home so we took another one that looked like her. So when they came home we took a look "underneath" and after double-checking with the vet it turns out they were both boys. We planned originally to call the one with the black and white patches on its face "Moo" like a cow reference and the other one with a small white moustache on his lip "Stache", so together they made a funny duo name when put together "Moustache", well done Rebecca for coming up with the idea! But seeing as they are boys, I've decided to rename "Moo" as "Dash" because he's a very hyper, fast and active little kitty cat. Rebecca wanted to name them "Ernie and Bert"... as funny as that is, I had to say no even though they are technically hers. So that's all explained now.

I'm getting used to cleaning out the litter tray (god does their poop stink XP), picking them up gently so that in time they will be used to it and most of all feeding them. I will admit it was a little sad having to make them wait a little in the late evening because we're trying to get them adjusted to a feeding routine because we all have awkward work shifts. We feed them at 7.00am, then Dad feeds them when he gets home at 2.30, we all feed them when me and Mum get home near 6.30pm and lastly we're now trying to feed them around 11.00pm so that it's almost 7-8 hours until their next feeding rather than making them wait 9-10 hours if they are fed at 9.00pm the previous night, it's all complicated but all for the best and they're both fit as a fiddle and gobble down their food like crazy (Mum reckons it's because they must have had to fight with the previous litter over food because there were originally 6 of them).
The boys are great, Dash seems to purr the loudest and every so often when I give him a good gentle stroke it soon turns into biting and gnawing my fingers, the little dude must be teething badly because sometimes now I can't even stroke him without him trying to attack my fingers ha ha.
Stache is very calm and I reckon he's the oldest of the pair (maybe for a couple minutes give or take) but he's starting to warm up and like his brother, he enjoys a good stroke and now he's starting to bite my fingers too. He's quite anxious and freaks out a little from stroking and is very picky when it comes to the different type of Whiskers Cat Food we give them both (one likes one flavour while the other doesn't which is a pain). They both were freaked out badly by the hoover when I was hovering Sunday, they better get used to this. So now everyday, I come home and enjoy the company of my little ones, they do seem to play fight a lot and when they're asleep or resting together, sometimes biting turns into cleaning each other.I can't wait for them to get a little older then they can come upstairs and maybe even sleep in our room at night for company, most of all I hope for them to be potty trained soon!!

So that's the story of the pets in my household, I have a little history with cats more than dogs. Though I like dogs I did have a real bad accident with one when I was 6 which ended with a bite through my arm (but that's another story). Not long guys now, till I'm skydiving! Super excited and looking forward to it and I'm also proud and happy of how much that has been raised already... £675!!! Woooo! My original goal was £200 but after 19 donations I've reached this! F*** me! So So So grateful to everyone and to those who are reading this and know they contributed! I will honor everyone's donation by facing my Destiny on September 17th! Speaking of Destiny, my new Xbox One game "Destiny" came yesterday and nwo that this post is fiiiinally done, now I can get round to playing it after missing my chance at the BETA. Now I get to see what the hype is all about.