Cat play

Today since it's still bitter cold out there, I decided to look through old photographs to see what pictures  I had taken at this time last year.

Behold Eleia, my youngest, most energetic and silly cat, watching me as she tries to decide whether to eat the daffodil bloom or leaves. She is a monkey, a rascal cat, and makes me laugh all the time.

She also has brought my older cat Christopher - who arrived on my neighbour's doorstep one evening eight or so years ago as a ninth month old starving kitten - back to life.

Eleia came into our lives via my niece who was looking for homes for five little kittens. I hadn't planned on getting another cat after Zach passed on. But Christopher had gone into a major decline. He had become an only. He didn't like being an only and sat around all the time, sleeping, hiding, and generally moping. He was in deep mourning for his buddy Zach.

Eleia at four or five months old was not allowing that. Though I kept them separate for the first week or so, she soon figured out how to get down the window well of the church windows to the main floor. There was the usual hissing and spitting as Christopher tried to tell her to get lost.

She ignored him. Just as she is looking at me with innocence in her eyes in this photograph, she was secretly planning her next attack as cats are wont to do. She would jump on him. They would roll around on the floor until Christopher would be the one to take off  - in disgust.

It didn't take long.

Her playfulness finally got to him.

Now whenever they see each other they touch noses, sometimes when one is going out and the other coming in. Christopher sleeps on the bottom of my bed. Eleia sleeps in the guest room but comes in throughout the night to cuddle with her buddy - he licks her head, she licks his ears. And then chaos erupts and they battle for a while before going back to sleep. Sometimes they just cuddle, but more often I'm awakened by the silent struggle as they bat one another's heads or play pattycake.

They have become best friends.

Eleia hates the cold, getting her feet wet and wind. So she  hasn't been going outside much all winter. since Christopher often heads outside no matter what the weather, she often has to play by herself.  I find small sponge balls coming down from the loft into the living room or into the kitchen sink where there is another window well up to my bedroom. Or she races from the front of the house to the back leaping on top of furniture, rushing at the dogs, or just running around like a mad thing for the sheer exuberant joy of being alive.

Cat play.

Amusing.

Fun.

And a reminder that it's not only me that can hardly wait for spring! I think everyone everywhere is ready for the season's change. How about you?