Please note that today's entry will be very late as Sambuca delivered 8 babies very early in the morning.

The little Herbs managed very well on their own for yesterday afternoon while we humans went to football. They had the run of the whole downstairs while we were out and behaved very well indeed as the house will still in one piece when we returned. Also, it meant that they were less inclined to destroy my desk had they been confined to just the one room while we were out. Just before writing this diary entry, I heard Amaretto behind me, screaming her head off in full call so I turned around, only to find she had poor Thyme by the neck and was trying to carry her around again! I was horrified so I rescued little Thyme and presented Amaretto with her big, pink round "thing" which I had previously taken away from her. Now that she has her pink "thing" back, she is leaving Thyme alone and is walking around the house singing with the "thing" in her mouth. I have to keep calling it a thing because I don't even remember what it originally started out as! Tarragon made the mistake of trying to play with mummy as she was walking around singing and Amaretto's response was to turn around and smack Tarragon in the mouth. I then had to pick up Tarragon and give her lots of kisses and tell her that her mummy didn't mean it, and that she's just hormonal. Sage is being particularly loving today and has spent some time sitting up on my shoulder purring (this is what Parsley normally does) and that was really nice. You will have to excuse me if diary entries are a tad short just for the next couple of days as Sambuca is due tomorrow which means I'll be spending a lot of time in the bedroom with her waiting for the big event. It's her very first litter and I don't want her to feel that she has to cope with it on her own.

There's not a great deal in the way of photos today sorry as it's a rather busy day for me. I have quite a lot to get through, including thoroughly cleaning out the bedroom and moving Sambuca's box in there as she will be sleeping in the bedroom from tonight onwards. The Herbs really outdid themselves overnight. I cam downstairs, had the usual battle with babies, cats and dogs at feeding time, went to turn my computer on and nothing happened! So I pressed the button again, still nothing, had a look at the back of the system, all the leads were plugged in and attached. I was bewildered as to why it wouldn't start. After that I then looked under my desk and everything was plugged into the power point and all okay. Looked at the power board at the other end of the room and realised there was no light on! Somehow or another, a Herb had physically turned off the switch. I do not know how as the board is hanging on the wall under the desk but obviously someone managed to do it. Fortunately, when I turned it back on, everything was working thank goodness. Parsley & Chives think they are very clever now as they are able to climb on top of the fish tank just like the big cats. I don't know how they got up there but I turned around and suddenly there they were with Amaretto and Cacao. They are very intelligent little babies without a doubt. Toys are now starting to turn up again too thank goodness. I found 4 toys on the stairs this morning, one toy on one stair, another on the next one down and so forth. It's almost as if they were taking them upstairs to play with them but then couldn't be bothered to carry them any further. One little blue mouse was buried under some newspaper and a one eyed octopus was stuffed under the sofa.

I am still feeling emotionally drained after yesterday's loss of Tia Maria's tiny baby and to sit here and type a "normal" diary entry is not easy at all. I can however look at my 6 beautiful Herbs and find their purrs and kisses very comforting right now. This morning I was rather pleased to see that they had left everything on my work surface in one piece, mind you, prior to leaving them last night, I did push everything to the back of the desk just to be on the safe side. They have been so very active today and have run riot throughout the whole of the downstairs and you just wouldn't believe the mess they have been making. Both Chives and Tarragon have knocked over one of their small food bowls, scattering dry food throughout the entire floor, first Chives, then no sooner had I cleared up the mess, Tarragon did exactly the same thing. Sheridans (not a Herb but thinks he is one) was being chased by Parsley and he ran straight into the water bowl, spilt water everywhere and soaked himself in the process. As if that wasn't bad enough, Rosemary then climbed the CD rack and knocked about 10 CD's onto the floor. After all this, they decided to play on the lounge instead, and while I was out there taking some photos of them, I heard some little squeals and turned around only to find my poor darling little Thyme had just been physically dragged from the back room, into the lounge by Amaretto! Retto is calling at the moment and normally when she calls she walks around the house with a large pink toy in her mouth singing away and she will not let it go. Last time she called, which was only recently, I had removed the toy from her because she was pulling all the fluff from it and swallowing it. I am presuming that as she doesn't have access to her toy, she is using poor Thyme instead! Naturally it had to be Thyme as the others are too big for her to carry around. As I write this entry now, their is peace and quiet, Sage is asleep on my lap, Cacao has Parsley and Sheridans on the chair sleeping and the other Herbs are sleeping on the lounge.

When I came downstairs this morning I was horrified to find my keyboard hanging off the desk inches above the floor by it's lead, the same with my mouse. All the paperwork that was on my desk was all over the floor, to say nothing of the tangled mess of pc leads at the back of my system. They had obviously had a kitten party last night that I wasn't invited to. Some of our babies aren't particularly happy with their new 4 meals a day routine as opposed to their old 5 meals routine. At about 9am, only 2 hours after they had been given breakfast, I went into the kitchen to prepare a milk meal for my tiny baby in Tia's litter and when I came back out of the kitchen, there was Rosemary, sitting on the floor, looking up at me and telling me she was starving and I had forgotten to feed her. The lies that come out of these babies mouths are just unbelievable! I explained to her that I did feed them, it was at 7am which wasn't that long ago, but she insisted that it was not the case. As I was about to step over her and go to feed the tiny baby, Thyme joined her and started echoing Rosemary's lies. I ended up compromising and I put the mixture back in the kitchen, and filled the 2 dry biscuit bowls to the top (they were in fact still half full!) and the babies then thought they were getting something new and ran straight to the bowls and started eating. Score one for human mummy :) I'm actually starting to get somewhere no with my "Things To Do" list. For example, I have now filled in the kitten registration form and just have to post that off, I've also ordered some kitten packs so you guys won't be leaving here with nothing :) Just the paperwork to make a start on now. The problem is that there is not enough time in the day but fortunately I still have 3 weeks to get it all together, a bit longer in some cases as 3 of our Herbs will be remaining some extra time which will be really nice. As I write this entry I have little Parsley in my lap giving me kisses and purring away which is very sweet, also very attention diverting. You may have noticed that diaries are not going online until later in the day now (although I do aim to have them online by lunchtime) and this is because I'm also doing Tia's kitten diary as well as Sami's pregnancy diary which means double the photos and text etc. I do appreciate though that all of our new owners have been so very lovely and not put in any complaints about the late entries :) Poor Sage was pushed off the windowsill today by Chives which was very naughty of her and fortunately, he was not injured, only his pride. The poor little guy didn't know where to look. How he wasn't able to fall onto the lounge or the platform on the scratch post I simply do not know, only he could manage to miss both of those and end up on the floor. I did have words with Miss Chives about being so naughty however she simply giggled at me and ran away in typical Oriental fashion.

Well I still haven't done a toy search but every now and then the Herbs are seen with their toys in their mouths so they obviously remember where they put them which is a very good thing. My job for today will be registering this litter. This is something I keep meaning to do (I'm starting to get a rather long list now of "Things To Do") and as they are 10 weeks old I can't put it off any longer. Actually if I don't send it in soon, I won't have the papers back for all you new owners :) Our newest feeding regime is now 4 meals a day. It used to be 5, but we have cut it back now so the Herbs get breakfast, lunch, dinner, and I then feed them again at 10pm. All of them though gobble up the kitten biscuits constantly so I'm really pleased. By the time they leave here, they should only be on 2 wet meals a day. The Herbs totally have taken over my chair this morning to the point where I had to move my chair and sit on the other office chair because I just couldn't get them off. Every time I lifted them off and put them on the floor, they scrambled straight back up. In the end I just gave up and let them have the chair as I was spending more time picking them up and putting them down than I was getting any work done! I was really relieved when they decided to go and play in the lounge room actually. Sage and Rosemary have now taught Chives their new game of dart in and out of the computer wires and playing "pounce" under the system protector which is something I really didn't need. Thank goodness for Parsley, Tarragon & Thyme who are much better behaved............at the moment. I must tell you this little story that happened yesterday just so that you new owners will appreciate that the babies you are getting apparently don't even look like cats so must be very special indeed :)
We had some workmen in the house today and one of them came out into the back room where I had the Herbs, Sheridans, and Cacao, Amaretto & Sambuca. Cao and Retto were sitting on the fish tanks, the rest were in the chair. Anyway, the workman noticed Cao and Retto on the fish tank, his mouth dropped open, he took a step back and then asked me "Are they cats?" At first I thought he was kidding but he truly didn't know what they were! I was stunned and fortunately didn't say what I was thinking and explained that they were Orientals which are similar to Siamese. His next question was "Would they bite me?" to which I explained he could pat them and they were very gentle. So he stroked Retto very tentatively but wasn't brave enough to touch Cacao which made me laugh. He then noticed the 7 babies and Sambuca in the chair and nearly fell over! Then he called his mate over and said: "Have you seen what these are?" So sure enough, workmen number 2 comes into the back room and just stands there and stares. I'm now wondering what on earth my cats resemble if he couldn't tell they were cats?
Today's photos are all "sleeping" ones because I just didn't have the energy to chase the Herbs all through the house with a camera in my hand when they were running riot :)

I'm struggling to do this diary entry inbetween cleaning out and preparing the kitten room for Tia and her babies, as well as 2 hourly feeding of Tia's smallest baby so it's rather manic here but that's nothing new I guess :) Our little Herbs have been so very active today, and because I'm trying to clean upstairs, I have blocked off access so they only have the downstairs to play in today. Rather than go and bounce about in the loungeroom, they felt it was much more fun to create havoc here in the back room, and on my desk. All their toys are now scattered throughout the house and I keep promising myself that one day soon I will do a search and try and locate them all. I really do not know what they do with them. Parsley has been in a really cuddly mood lately, much more so than normal which is hard to believe as he really does love human company. In the last few days, as soon as I sit down, he is up on my lap and shoulder straight away, purring like crazy in my ear which is really sweet. Sage and Rosemary have a new game now which involves running along my work surface and climbing in under the plastic cover on my system and then as Sage sticks his head out, Rosemary bops him on the head and tries to get in there with him. Then they get tangled up in the leads behind the system and need to be rescued. Naturally, I remove them and put them back on the floor but within a few minutes, they are at it again. I am hoping that this new game of theirs won't last very long as I have visions of my computer suddenly not working again! All our Herbs are progressing really well and I'm finding it hard to believe that they are now 10 weeks old as the time is simply flying by now.

This entry will probably go on record as being the shortest entry yet and probably won't even make any sense due to the fact that Tia Maria gave birth last night and I am just so very exhausted. Also, my day will now be filled with doing a zillion loads of washing from the birth. Quite naturally, the Herbs don't take into account that their human mummy has gone into "Zombie" mode so they have been their normal active selves but if nothing else, their games and thumps and thuds should keep me awake throughout the day! As usual, as soon as breakfast was over this morning, the little ones scattered to all parts of the house, upstairs and downstairs. The Herbs no longer have mashed up soggy biscuits as part of their "wet food" meals as they've all told me that they now prefer to mix Whiskers "Supameat" with Sheba and that is all that they want to eat, along with their beloved pilchards in tomato sauce. They are still on 4-5 meals a day and all of them still have very good appetites. Even though we've had lovely weather here for the last 2 days, none of our babies have been out into the cat run at all. They are still much more interested in the upstairs hallway which our daughter doesn't appreciate because once breakfast is over and the house is opened up, the first thing that most of them do is tear upstairs and chase each other up and down the hallway. Normally that wouldn't matter however it's school holidays and our daughter has no hope at all of sleeping in past 8am thanks to the Herbs' antics.