woolymonkey | Moving house does strange things to your cats

We're getting settled into the new monkey house and musique_monkey is feeling much, much better. This is all very good.

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You know how Leicester was always the confident one who did everything first? Well, as soon as we got here, who was first out of the cat carriers? Humbug! OK, it turned out later that this was because someone* had peed in his carrier so it wasn't very nice in there, but still, he was out first and exploring while Leicester was still lurking in his box.

Leicester was jumpy and nervous for days, though he gradually settled in. Humbug just made himself at home and now quite literally walks taller.

There's no cat flap yet, but they've started exploring the Outdoors through the kitchen window. Again, Humbug is the big, brave one who goes out first and stays out longest. Leicester spent the first few days staying very close to the house or watching through the open window without venturing out. Humbug was out so much and went so far that he got himself accidentally shut out for several hours when I thought he was upstairs. Didn't seem to bother him at all.

There are 5 Other Cats, probably all from the University Farm next door, and pretty well-behaved so far, but of course they view this as their Outdoors and have been known to chase Hummie and Leicester home fairly forcefully. This bothers Leicester, but the Bug just shrugs it off. Maybe it's just easier when you're used to being the undercat...

Humbug: O hai Other Cats! I'm just a low-down fluffy doormat looking for stickses. No challenge at all.
Other Cat 1: WTF is that?
Other Cat 2: dunno but I think we shud go hoam
Other Cat 3: halp! mutant squirl!

Leicester is used to being Teh Mighty King Leicester and just doesn't know what to do, even with Tiny Black Other Cat The Size of a Hamster, though he seemed to get a bit more confidence over the weekend. Or maybe Leicester is just guarding the house while Humbug irresponsibly goes wandering far away and leaves it unprotected.

Anyway guess which cat I found yesterday just inside the kitchen window with a bloody enormous dead woodpigeon he'd dragged in? Yep, Humbug! It's true some of his previous prey has been quite large, but that was stickes and polystyrenes. That woodpigeon is first thing he's ever caught that could move under its own power. He didn't really seem to know what to do with it. Was he going to start a new stick pile, or did it need a special woodpigeon pile? So he just ran back out to the garden to look for more.

Then Leicester grabbed the woodpigeon and carried it upstairs where he managed to shred it in a corner of the bedroom before I found him. He says he caught it, but I don't think he did. Monkey boys reckon maybe another cat caught it and Hummie found it, or maybe it just fell out of a tree onto him (or possibly vice versa). But I reckon he caught it himself. Properly.

We've always suspected he wasn't really a cat, but we thought he was a fluffy stuffed toy. Turns out he's a wild, woolly country critter. Look out for news stories about the Beast of Girton.

*We have no idea who that could be. Humbug says it was like that when he got in there. That was why he didn't want to go in.