Or should that be purrspective?  Sorry.

I have had a couple of requests for updates on the cats…. so, here we go – please press the back button now if you aren’t of a pet friendly persuasion.

The cats were far quieter in the taxi from the cargo depot to the apartment, via the letting agent office (and almost being wombled on the streets of San Blas!) than they had been in the car en route to Gatwick at 6am, which was a delightful experience – and that has continued since we’ve been here, they have been calm and content all round.  Although I am sure at first it was due to the flight being more than a little traumatic, and relief at being on land again – you can’t explain to a pet that it might be terrible, but it’s only four hours, and there will be love, cuddles and a lot less engine noise awaiting them at the end of it.

The female cried at 4am most mornings when we were in our ad hoc accommodation, which I believe was due to the fact we were confined to one room when it was human sleep time – dawn chorus aside – and she has never liked a closed door (Kim K would be proud of the FOMO!!).  However, here she seems to be okay with having a portion of the apartment (my bedroom and the office) closed off to cats; keeping the fluff contained is desired, that stuff gets everywhere, and in this heat it sticks to you.

They have their own bedroom and the run of the open kitchen / lounge, where they make themselves very much at home on the corner sofa from morning to evening, cats really do sleep a lot.  They’ve never been a fan of furniture actually directed at pets, so I don’t bother, scratching post aside; I’ve had a “big boy” scratching post delivered here, delivery was twice the cost of the item itself, but in combination with an automatic feeder it means I can be both lazy and houseproud (and I think that takes me slightly under the crazy cat lady threshold?  Or did I lose at that forever when they got passports?).

There is a terrace which I am keeping off limits, partly because we are on the first floor (second if you are from the USA) and I’m nervous about them following a butterfly over the wall and ending up on someone else’s terrace roof – but also because I’ve been warned about the feral cats by a kindly pet friendly plumber.  Back in the day, when doing my pre kitten purchase research, I deliberately picked a breed which would be happy housecats, this also means they have no fighting instincts – they are also cream and fluffy; Canarian black sand would not be their friend.  The Birman is also known as The Sacred Cat Of Burma, which is where the breed derived from before almost being wiped out in WW2 and rescued by the French, so they are quite comfortable by design with the increase in ambient temperature.

Cat care wise we have had one win and one fail.  Win wise they love love the Spanish catfood.  I am struggling to find non tuna based dry food, and generally have to go to three supermarkets before I find a chicken and/or beef base, but I’m trying to keep a stock in hand whenever I spot some.  Brings back memories of Bristol when I always seemed to have a box in my handbag….. associated drinking games, anyone?  Litter wise we are not in an ideal place; Amazon let me change my delivery address and the litter made it to Tenerife from the UK, via Germany and Spain, but then we got stuck and it is somewhere in limbo (the DHL man and I couldn’t interpret the website, and the man in the local parcel office can’t understand me)  – so now we are without World’s Best Cat Litter (corn based and flushable) and on the generic stuff you have to put in the rubbish bin, thank goodness for the Spanish system of communal bins with every other day collection.  If anything a big reason I don’t miss London is fortnightly refuse cycles!

Overall, therefore:
+ cats love the temperature
+ cats love the food
+ cats are happy with the apartment
– cats aren’t quite sure what to make of cockroaches…..

I think they would say we can stay!  (In a strong South Bristolian accent, of course.)