The backstory of how we came to go back to being a two-cat family is a lengthy one which I probably won’t tell here, but it is interesting, and involves trauma of several kinds, cat traps and kitten sacks.

But it’s really past time to introduce Sophie to the wider world. A few days before this picture was taken, we brought her over from Toni-across-the-street in a pet carrier and set her loose in the front room. She started coming out and exploring a few days later.

She is a one year old stray, and had just had her second litter of kittens, inflicted on her by some random tom cat. The kittens were all tortiseshell but Sophie is midnight black. The day before we collected her from Toni, she had just come back from being “fixed” – so you can see her bald tummy.

As I write this, Sophie is pretty much ruling the house like a little princess, and is very affectionate to humans that she knows. It is hard to believe that she was a stray for all of her life. Kami keeps out of her way, and hisses if she comes too near. This is safer than her original strategy, which was to pretty much ignore Sophie. Sophie took that as as invitation to beat Kami up, which she did very effectively for such a discrepancy in body masses. Kami received a nasty bite at least once.

Sophie is still very nervous, and will startle if we move suddenly, or speak up in a louder voice than usual, and is very nervous of other people who come into the house. Having said that, we had the kids here for a few days and by the end of that time, if they were sitting still on the couch watching TV, Sophie would come out and talk to them.

Sophie has an extensive vocabulary – street slang probably – and isn’t afraid to use it when she wants attention. Mostly things like, “Wak? Wak wak. Wak! Wak wak wak wak.”

We hear that most often at 4:00am in the morning. It’s getting to the point where we will have to have a discussion about shutting her out of our bedroom at night, because we’d both like at least one night of unbroken sleep…