When Chivers met Minnie...

Today's post will be unashamedly dedicated to Chivers and Minnie's first day together...

We had kept Minnie in her box overnight and placed her in the hallway between the two bedrooms because this meant that we could be nearby if there was a problem and also it meant that Chivers couldn't duff her up when left to his own devices.  He hadn't been overly impressed with her, or us, last night and that was probably because we hadn't done the introductions properly having looked up on the tintyweb what we should have done.

Bless her, she wailed pitifully from the box but used the litter tray straight away and eventually she settled down and went to sleep.  We woke early because once she heard a noise she was wide awake and was making sure that we knew it.  John went off to make sure that Chivers was ok and that his nose hadn't been put too much out of joint and I went and took Minnie out of her cage and brought her into the bedroom for a little cuddle.  As you can see we like to have colour-coordinating cats in our household as she blends in nicely with the throw on the bed!  She is quite a different colour to Chivs as he is quite clearly a ginga and she is more beige and ash-blonde (being a girl!).

Chivers was ok and World War III was downgraded to Mexican stand-off with John desperately playing the mediator - Minnie was quite unconcerned about having walked into Chivers' domain.  He obviously found her constant whinging a bit irritating and she kept diving into his food and using his litter tray. 

The first breakthrough came with the scratching post and the pink fluff-ball.  John managed to get them both to play there at the same time without killing one another.  Minnie took a particular shine to the teddy bear that we had given Chivers and which he had quite stiffly ignored and it wasnt too long before she had found the sunshine and got her head down catching a nap.

During the course of the morning we had a phonecall from Nicky and Mark inviting us out for a Curry we explained that we would have loved to but with the two newbies alone in the house we could come back to carnage.  I offered to do a curry up here and they accepted - we arranged that they would stay overnight (although we would be kicking them out quite early as we were walking with the Saturday Group in Fiti).

I shot off down to Polis to get the ingredients I needed for the meal totally forgetting it was Ochi Day and so I ended up getting stuck in the middle of the march by the school children in Polis (typical of Cyprus - they had started before the Police had pitched up to deal with the traffic!).  For those of you who dont know...

Ochi Day (Anniversary of the "No") is celebrated throughout Greece, Cyprus and the Greek communities around the world on October 28 each year, to commemorate the Greek Prime Minister's rejection of the ultimatum made by Mussolini on October 28 1940.  This ultimatum demanded that Greece allow Axis forces to enter Greek territory and occupy certain unspecified "strategic locations" or otherwise face war. It was allegedly answered with a single word: όχι (No!) However, his actual reply was, Alors, c'est la guerre (Then it is war).  As a result of the refusal Italian troops attacked the Greek border thus ensuring Greece's participation in  World War II.  On the morning of October 28 the Greek population took to the streets, irrespective of political affiliation, shouting 'ochi'. From 1942, it was celebrated as Ochi Day.

On my return it was clear that progress had been made and that John had persevered with his negotiation and arbitration - ACAS are missing a trick I can tell you!!

The only trouble is that we are supposed to have one cat each and my lap was very much empty!!! Still the boy done good and we are fairly confident that given time and encouragement Chivs and Min would at least tolerate one another if nothing else.  Time will tell but we are hopefull - only trouble is Chivs is being a bit of a wuss and backs off quite a bit!

We had loads of visitors today.  Irene came round to check out Minnie and declared that for a stray she was in pretty good nick but needed to be checked out by the Vet for all the usual ailments - we are quite certain that she has worms judging by the amount she eats and poos and her wind is legendary - it could clear the house in five seconds.  We dont want her passing anything on to Chivers having just got him sorted and we think that after he had such a poor start in life he will be a 'delicate' cat.

Ollie came round to ask John if he would help him put up some guttering - for that read that John will do it bearing in mind Ollie's accident when last up a ladder. 

Our neighbour Gregoris was here with his family and friends as was Angela from 3B who is having her house gutted - John managed to sweet talk her into giving us her old shutters which is a bonus!

Galadia and Charalambous called in briefly to catch up and to leave us a present of some home-made soutzouko which I absolutely love - what is soutzouko?  It is a traditional Cypriot sweet where strings of almonds are dipped in grape juice time and time again so they look like candles.  It is delicious and as it is one of Mum's 'only weaknesses' I shall make sure that she gets a string.