I am 4 weeks old now!

There is no entry for today as I was showing Cacao and Ashanti.

Both entries start off exactly the same this morning. I got up, came downstairs, stared in horror at the destruction in the back room, guessed that our adults had a party overnight or something and hadn't invited me, made a coffee, and took a plate of food upstairs for the mums. I entered the kitten room, all was well, Liquorice was running about, the Tails of Hans Christian Anderson were all sound asleep, so that was fine. I came back downstairs, answered a few emails, did all the chores, went back upstairs to feed the mum's again and take some photos for today's diaries, I opened the kitten room door and the first thing I saw was a very empty posh box! Not a baby in sight. Now it isn't unusual for Liquorice not to be in the box, but there is no way on earth that the Tails of Hans Christian Anderson could be out of the box. They are not strong enough yet. I then turned around and on the floor, inbetween the scratch post and the ottoman, was a pile of babies, not on any bedding, just on the floor <sigh>. I changed the bedding in the box, scooped the babies up, put them back in the box, much to the disgust of both mums. Sambuca went into the box, picked up Snow Queen, took her straight out and back to the same spot on the floor. I then went and picked Snow Queen straight back up and put her back in the box. I then took the photos, left the room and I am not going to be impressed if, when I go back upstairs, they are all on the floor again. But what I will do if that is the case, is simply move the scratch post, put the box where they have moved the babies too, and put them all back in the box :) If that doesn't confuse the mums, nothing will.

It would appear that I am not the only member of the family who is falling under Liquorice' spell. Last night, Graham wanted to go in and "visit" the babies, something he rarely, rarely does when they are still so very young. He actually wanted to go and have cuddles with Liquorice and watch her run around the room. Now what on earth could this mean???????? She is a little darling and is doing extremely well but she isn't able to understand yet why the Tails of Hans Christian Anderson can't play with her. This morning she was rolling around in the kitten box, she had Snow Queen in a headlock, and was trying to wrestle with her. It will be nice when the other babies are able to play more with her but one thing I will say is that Liquorice is very gentle with them when she's playing and what is also adorable is that she spends some of her waking moments grooming the younger babies.

I found it extremely difficult to take photos of my darling Liquorice this morning because she is becoming quite attached to me and whenever I am in the kitten room, instead of running around and playing, she runs towards me, and then has to be with me the whole time I'm in the room. So as I'm backing away trying to take photos of her, she is running towards me. Out of today's batch of photos, there are at least 20 images that I couldn't use as they were extremely blurry action shots. She is still creating havoc with her 2 mum's and and both ladies are constantly trying to monitor where she is, follow after her, and Cointreau is not adverse to telling her daughter off in no uncertain terms which I must admit I do find extremely amusing. Liquorice, being her father's daughter, pays no heed at all to her mother's admonishing tone and she continues to go where she likes, do what she likes, and she just looks so darn adorable that I fail to see how anyone could tell her off. Oh dear, I am starting to turn her into another "Ashanti" :(

Yesterday afternoon, Liquorice had a visit from her "Great Granny", Caryll which was really lovely and Caryll can definitely see why I am so enamoured with Liquorice. Like me, Caryll also had a giggle out of watching her try and run, and we were both extremely impressed when she decided rather than go up the ramp the normal way, she went around the side of the box where the ramp was at it's highest and she put a lot of hard work into trying to claw her way back onto the top and she is such a clever and determined child because she got there in the end. It was so lovely to see Caryll and Ray again, we had a really enjoyable afternoon chatting away and if Caryll has gone home addicted to pear cider, that is not our fault ;) One bad note in this diary is, and I hate to say it, but it appears that Cointreau is about to come into call again. As you can see by this entry, Liquorice is a mere 24 days old and this will be the 2nd time that Cointreau has called since he was born. I really am at a loss and I'm hoping I am wrong. I don't know if it's something in the water :) or if it's because we now have indoor stud cats but I tell you calling is suddenly becoming a huge problem in this house!

Now that Liquorice knows what it's like to run and play, there is no stopping her. This girl is more like a 6 week old kitten than a 3 week old kitten! I have never seen a baby like it in all my life. Again last night she had me in fits of laughter as she was running around the room. She also, pounces on both mum's tails, she darts in between their legs, running under their stomachs, and she knows full well if she goes behind the bunk beds or under her box, then they can't get her back out. She is going to be trouble this girl. When I am about to leave the kitten room I have to be so careful now because she sees me walk towards the door and she comes tearing over and tries to run out the door. I was telling Graham again last night how advanced she is and how funny she is so he came into the kitten room with me to watch her and even he was amazed at the things she was doing. And fearless, well, this girl is scared of absolutely nothing at all. She was happy to go straight up to Graham and sniff him and play around his feet and let him pick her up. She is going to be as bold as her dad is. Graham picked her up and looked at her and told her how "special" she was going to be and as he was talking to her, I was thinking that now he can see what I am on about when I am always raving on about her and I honestly thought he was going to say "You are so special, I think you should live here". But did he????????????????? What he actually said was: "You are so special, we will have to find a very special home for you" Typical!!! I really shouldn't get my hopes up like that should I. Still, let's see what happens when she is older and downstairs ;)

Liquorice had me in fits of laughter last night, and she had both mum's in a state of panic :) I had gone into the kitten room to change the litter tray and as soon as Liquorice saw me in the room, she came running down the ramp and then decided to have a "mad moment" where she ran around the room. I didn't know a baby so young could move so fast. She was running at the fastest speeds possible, going as fast as her little legs would carry her. Cointreau and Sambuca both came tearing out of the kitten box, straight towards Liquorice as they felt she should not be out of bed. The Tails of Hans Christian Anderson then started to cry because they had been feeding when the mum's ran out of the box. Both mum's then looked back at the box and realised that there were babies in the box with no mum, so Cointreau went back into the box to see to the Tails of Hans Christian Anderson, while Sambuca went after Liquorice. It was just the funniest thing to see Liquorice tearing around the room with Sambuca chasing after her to try and get her back into bed. Sami was getting really frustrated because Liquorice just wouldn't stop running so Sami wasn't able to pick her up. I don't think Liquorice knew where was running to, or even why she was running, but once she started, she had no intentions of stopping. It must have gone on for a good 10 minutes and yes I could have put Sambuca out of her misery and picked Liquorice up and put her in the box but I was too busy laughing to be able to help. Eventually, Liquorice started to tire out and so she trotted back up the ramp, back into bed, with Sambuca following her and telling her off in no uncertain terms :)

At 3 weeks of age, Liquorice is proving to be a very big time waster. I spent about 2 hours yesterday afternoon finally getting the kitten room the way I want it. The bookcase was removed from the room, the display unit was emptied out and then it was removed. The wooden shelf unit was then moved down and things were put back in there and I then rearranged the cupboard and it's contents which means that I now have more space in the room which is essential as Drambuie will be moving in there as well in about 2 weeks' time, and I can now find everything I need in the small cupboard. I ended up throwing out an entire black bin liner full of stuff that I either hadn't used, or didn't want. I also put the radio that used to be in the stud house, into the kitten room so that the babies can start getting used to music etc. The problem was, that while I was doing all of this, Liquorice was awake so I had to keep stopping for tickles and cuddles and chats with her every 10 minutes which really slowed me down as you can imagine. She is just too irresistible and she does love lots of attention. I have to be very careful that I don't spoil her as much as I spoilt her father :)