Furbabies

Besides me, +Annette, and Maddy, there are two other members of our household. We adopted two cats from the RSPCA last year. Originally we went to get a little cat called Raffy, but her cage-mate Winston looked so lonely by himself, sitting with his back to us looking forlornly out the window, that we had to bring him home too. For his placid nature (and our love of a certain TV show), Winston became Serenity. "Suki" means "like" (as in to like someone) in Japanese, and Firefly fitted energetic and fuzzy Raffy, so she became Suki Firefly.

Suki Firefly

Suki was two when we got her. Originally rather nervous, she's settled down a lot - although she's still a high-energy skitty kitty and will happily charge around the place and bounce off the walls. She's very flexible as you can see, and has a habit of getting your attention by rolling onto her head from a sitting position, somersaulting to reveal her fluffy tummy. Sometimes it's pats, and sometimes it's bear-trap.

She also loves destroying rolls of paper towel and toilet paper, ripping cardboard to shreds, pretending to gut coathangers with knitted covers, sitting on the backs of swivel chairs or leaping on them so they spin around, and pestering her somewhat more sedentary 'brother'. She's not a lap cat but she will sleep on the bed, and she doesn't enjoy being picked up much.

Serenity

Serenity is more of an older gentleman; we were originally told he was three or four, but it turns out he's closer to seven. He's a very cuddly cat with a 'husky' build, although we're trying to get his weight down a little. He enjoys sleeping, sitting on people, and eating. On top of cat food, he will try to eat any meat that's left on the bench, and likes to chew on my fingers. Just mine, nobody else's. He also has a strange fascination with polyhedral dice and will drag them to the edge of the table and try to chew on them, which is amusing but does tend to disrupt gaming! Oh, and he also likes chewing the corners of smartphones and tablets.

The only time he tends to move quickly is just after visiting the litter tray, when he either sits excitedly in the middle of the floor and stomps his front feet in what I have termed "jazz paws", or he just bolts around as fast as he can. Last week he ran into the ironing board as Annette was carrying it out of the hall!

The two have been indoor cats for most of their time here, partly to stop them killing things and partly because there are a number of established territorial cats in the area and we didn't want them getting into fights. We tried taking them for walks with a harness and leash, with mixed results; neither of them really like it, and while Suki (who was the most insistent about going out) eventually tolerated it so she could go eat most of the lawn, it was always a struggle to stop her going into problematic areas where she might get tangled. Serenity was originally terrified of the outdoors, showing signs of distress and insisting on going back inside.

Since I moved in, we've been letting them out on the condition that they wear loud bells on their collars so we can hear where they are. Standard cat bells are too quiet, so I bought a couple of smallish copper bird-bells that do the trick. They ring with the slightest movement, and are audible from the next yard over.

Originally Suki was the big explorer, heading off into neighbouring gardens while Serenity slowly inspected our back deck at his own pace. After a month or two, the situation's almost reversed - Suki spends a lot of her time lazing under the deck and hunting lizards while Serenity's off making a nuisance of himself by competing with an old female cat next door for her warm patio.

They are our furbabies and we love them very much.