My Lovely Fur Family and Fur Neighbours

Cats are a special present from heaven. They motivate me to get up very early in the morning. Tiger usually sleeps at my feet and is the first to start cuddling and purring, so relaxing. Being greeted by my big fur family on the terrace a great start into the morning. They are so lovely and dislike the winter as much as I do. At night after they decided where to sleep (some have their favourite place) I cover them with their small fleece blankets to keep my little darlings warm. Like children they may uncover themselves so before I go to bed I check whether they are okay. Strange, on some days all cats, those that live with us and those who come to the cats' table, appear to be very hungry, on other days they don't feel much like eating. The other day only 4 cats arrived for breakfast, usually 10 or more are coming. What happened? Knowing that animals are often not exactly appreciated I got worried. Slowly more cats arrived, thank heaven. I guess they slept a bit longer just like the sun does now. Adele and Adamo, two injured cats that I successfully nursed and gave shelter in my library as my cat family did not seem to be willing to accept further members, started to remove my books from the shelving. Though they look pretty on the shelf, my books on the floor don't. Maybe they heard that books are getting out of fashion? Anyhow, time to integrate my little darlings. Unfortunately this means taking Adamo to the vet so that we won't have unwanted pregnancies, prevent him from marking his area and causing less problems with the other tomcats. Following the operation I slowly introduced Adamo at first to those ladies that welcome all newcomers, Lilly, Felicitas, Eileen, Suzy, Amelie. It all worked well, I guess Adamo's gentle character was helpful. A few days later it was Adele' s turn. She was very nervous in view of the new surroundings, this changed when she saw her old companion, Adamo. He gave her a special welcome, showed her around. They still stick together a lot. Another new addition, little Janina, approx. 3 months old. One day she appeared in front of my entrance door and pretty much stayed there. She tried to gain entrance a few times, this I refused for a while. One day I discovered she suffers from a gum infection and has a small injury on her right ear. I treated her the way I learnt from our vet (I meanwhile have a little pharmacy for cats). Gentle sweet Janina allowed me to apply that blue liquid onto her gum, not very pleasant, other cats hate it. Even though we are already a big family, I decided Janina deserves to live with us, rather than spend these cold nights outside. Diana performed an acrobat exercise, she filled an ashtray on the floor, not one drop beneath it, I guess she doesn' like smoking? (My husband was not amused.) For our neighbourhood fur angels I leave a bowl of water and dry food ( Croquettes) outside, in the beginning in a pottery bowl, which repeatedly got either broken ( by football or on purpose) or stolen. For a while I have now been using the empty plastic ice-cream boxes instead. On various occasions these disappeared over night. Hopefully stolen to feed cats or dogs, (not "just for fun") but the croquettes are a special mixture for cats rather than dogs. Nonetheless I am not happy with stealing, we prefer to have honest neighbours. It is getting colder, though quite a bit warmer than in most parts of Europe, but it feels alike. Winter means a lot of coughing, sneezing, running noses. As cats can' t use handkerchiefs, nature has another, not very good solution: licking. Whenever possible I clean their nose, ears, face, they don't like it, but more or less tolerate this procedure,  some of my homeless darlings more than my in-house treasures. Not all are the same, several of the home-less angels are so gentle, it is unbelievable and unlike quite a few kids and youngsters here, they know respect!  When I am cold, I don't switch on the central heating (haven't got one), but whenever possible walk upstairs to my roof terrace and enjoy there in the middle of my great gorgeous fur family the free heating from heaven.