When we moved from Shanghai to Perth we were allowed to bring 2 cats with us. We had 5, so we had to have a Kitty Survivor competition to see who would get the tickets Down Under.

Actually it was pre-decided and as Jade's parent were moving into our house in Shanghai and renting out theirs, the three that lost the competition would still have a good home.

It took 7 months to get them here, One month stay in Singapore quarentine, 5 months in a Singapore cattery and one more month in the Australian quarantine station near Perth. We nicknamed that one Guantanameow Bay.

By the way those are Aussie regulations.

In the meantime we merely jumped on a plane and brought our human diseases with us.

Soon after we arrived we found the house we wanted and moved in. Of course we were catless but not for long.

Jade was up a tree in the back yard lopping branches with her chain saw (one I bought her as a present, last of the old romantics I am) when a very small, fluffy ginger female appeared at the end of the branch that Jade was lopping totally unperturbed by the chain saw. We nicknamed her Boots and we could never work out where she came from. From time to time we saw her mother and sister. We did eventually find out they were all semi feral.

Boots was the tamest and within a few weeks Jade had her tamed and she was a lovely cat. By the time the Shanghai Two were released from Guantanameow Bay, Boots was well established. We had her neutered and she was fine, there were a few hissy fits when Mimi and Guoguo were released and came to the new home but they all settled down.

Boots was sadly killed when she dashed across the road at the front of the house, Jade was devestated as she had never had a pet killed that way. Boots was buried in the front garden.

Boot's sistser and mother kept turning up and they were quite skinny and wretched but would not come near us. We decided they needed food and some care.

A couple of months before Christmas 2008 Jade noticed that the sister, who we named Socks (yes Boots & Socks) was pregnant. Then suddenly she was thin again clearly she had had the kittens but we did not see them. Then at Christmas 2008 she brought all three to our garden. Clearly a clever cat, she and the kittens stayed. As she weaned them she took to disapearing again and we were left with 3 kittens, one male ginger and 2 female black and ginger.

Our local vet offered to take them to the CPL but we said we would try and look after them. He agreed to neuter them at a knock down cost which we did for all three plus Socks who we trapped with food.

Max the ginger male dissapeared one day, Socks too dissapeared leaving us with the 2 females now named Vicky and Pinky (Jade would not let me called them 9 Tails and Lash).

In May 2009 Guoguo was also killed on the same road and we were very very upset. Blaming ourselves for letting her escape to the front. She too is buried at the front.

So we are down to 3 again. Mimi is very definately the Queen and is now 10 years old, Vicky very timid and Pinky into everything. We have seen other cats around clearly homeless and we have decided now that we will stick with the three we have and not take on anymore. But Jade has the breaking strain of a warm Kit-Kat when it comes to felines, so watch this space...

By the way we know the identity of the father of the kittens, a very randy three legged tom.