A house is not a home without a cat.

Or two.I miss Archie terribly each day and still wake up very upset, but we decided very quickly, particularly our younger son, that cats are very much part of our life, and so I have to make some introductions in a minute.

Thank you SO much all of you who offered such support and concern, it's quite overwhelming to hear from so many people and I am very grateful. I'm still struggling and feel like I'm not in my own life, but time and friends will help.

So now to our new furry additions.
They are both rescue boys from our local RSPCA shelter - they had come from a room, just a room, with over 30 cats in, all their lives in one room, although well enough fed and looked after. These two seemed to have a bond, with the little one headbutting and curling up with the older one all the time when we visited their pen, so home they both came. They both had terrible sneezing fits for the first week or so and the little one just sat all day, but now they are absolutely fine and full of energy just as cats should be.

Monty:is the handsomest black and white cat ever, with neat white feet and beautiful white whiskers. He is very solid and tall, with a very wavy fluffed-up tail. He may be about 4 or 6, nobody seems to know. He is friendly although still a little wary.
Monty likes food, climbing, running off with the grey furry mouse-toy, chatting, chasing feathers, food, looking out of the window, food, chasing a ping-pong ball in the bath, food, and sleeping on son no. 2's up-in-the-air-bed.

Monty is in the process of re-modelling the sofa so that it has perforations.

Leo:is a very fluffy, soft black kitten, about 6 months old. He is very like Archie but has, to me, a very different face. We love black cats and yet they often get left behind in shelters. When he came home he was SO thin, you could feel all the bones in his spine and his shoulder blades stuck out, I think the older cats had been pushing him out of the way at mealtimes. Now he has a tummy like a small round, fluffy football that sways from side to side a bit as he walks. He didn't know how to play with anything when he came but now it's lovely to see him running off with the grey furry mouse and feathers. He is affectionate and has a little cuddle and a purr every day.

Leo likes food, squeaking loudly to get more food, chatting to Monty, chasing Monty's feathers and stealing the grey furry mouse, food, sitting in the sunshine, food, chasing a ping-pong ball in the bath with Monty, food, and curling up with Monty on son no.2's bed.
Leo is re-modelling the carpet on a daily basis. This is how we chose our carpet - nice and flat:

This is Leo's preferred design - nice and loopy with lots of sticky-up bits:

Sadly it is a very large and expensive carpet to replace. Every morning when I come down I take my pointy pair of scissors and try and poke the loopy bits back into the carpet backing, but that just leaves holes. Leo is definitely winning.

It is good to have furry lives in our home again, but Archie was SUCH a good cat we'd forgotten what havoc cats can cause, especially when there are two of them. And it's not the same - Archie was so special, he slept on my shoulder for a bit every night, I've never had such an affectionate cat and will never forget him. But these two are making me smile again and are good to come home to, as long as they haven't destoyed too much. We've not had two together for years, it's so nice to see them playing and hear them constantly chatting to each other, and of course they love curling up together too.