Before I say anything else, I must let you know that tomorrow's entry will not go online until Sunday as I am going to be frantically busy tomorrow so don't panic when you don't see an entry online.

Ned Kelly has a new fascination in life which keeps him rather occupied when he is awake and exploring so it looks as if Elaine will have to buy a fish tank just to keep Ned Kelly happy. On Graham's work surface is the smallest of our tropical aquariums and Ned Kelly thinks it is fantastic. He is in awe of these colourful things that move about so quickly and he watches the for ages. Fortunately, after one small bump, or two, he has learnt that just because he can see them very clearly, does not mean that there is not glass separating the fish and Ned. I know I should laugh but when the babies first discover the fish tanks, I do have a giggle as I watch them walk straight into the tanks, head butting the glass because they don't seem to know that it is there. Both Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne are doing wonderfully well and they are both absolute darlings. Both in very different ways as their personalities are different, as is normal with babies in litters. Ironically enough though, Ned Kelly has calmed down quite a bit now whereas Joe Byrne is on the go all the time apart from when he is asleep. He seems to have so much energy that he doesn't know what to do with it so he is constantly bounding around the home, upstairs and downstairs and already he has managed to make friends with some of our adult cats because even when a couple of them growl at him, he is not phased one iota which is good to see. Unfortunately, Graham is spoiling Ned Kelly and has turned him into a real daddy's boy and ever morning after breakfast, the first thing Ned does is goes to visit his "dad" who doesn't hesitate in scooping him up, putting him on his lap for cuddles and chats. I really do not know how Elaine is going to be able to remove Ned Kelly from Graham's grasp when the time does eventually arrive. Drambuie has now come into call again which is something that I really could do without because when the mum's do come into call, it does make a difference with the babies, also with the milk and the babies are naturally all still feeding from mum's as well as having normal meals.

They are not long entries today, nor are there many photos as I have a lot to do today including a long dental appointment. You will also notice that one of the photos is of a computer screen and the reason for this, as odd as it seems, is that when Graham and I came downstairs this morning, we discovered that the babies must have had fun and games on my work surface last night because on the 2nd computer that sits on my desk they have managed to open a notepad and then type on it. This has happened for 2 days in a row now so I guess I really need to put the keyboards up out of the way overnight just to keep the computers safe.

Joe Byrne is still in "one of those moods" and has been pouncing on everything in sight. He also figured it was time that he taught Caffreys and XXXX that there were stairs in the home and when I was walking through the house, about to go upstairs, I received a shock to see Joe Byrne at the top of the stairs, with Caffreys on the next step down and XXXX half way up the stairs. Now I am sure that if Joe hadn't have taught them, they never would have gone up of their own accord. Ned Kelly has had a much calmer day so far today which makes a nice change. He has been perfectly content to play nicely with the other boys and girls and do some exploring on and around dad's desk as per usual.

Just a quick note to all diary readers to say please don't worry if entries are a bit late over the next 2 weeks because the Commonwealth Games have begun and today was the Opening Ceremony which was held in my beautiful home country of Australia. I keep getting up from the desk to see what is happening at the games so I am away from the desk off and on.

I had to smile at Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne today as the are finally beginning to understand that as a "famous gang of Bush Rangers" they should be sticking together and defending each other. (yes I know I shouldn't really say gang as there are only 2 of them, however, with the mischief they cause, it is as if there are a gang) After they had eaten their 2nd meal of the day they decided that it was time to play. Cacao happened to be downstairs sitting on the rug in the lounge area and Ned Kelly spotted her from where he was playing in the back room. He went bounding over to her, right up in her face and smacked her leg with his paw. So Cacao smacked him back and then sat there giving him her famous evil stare. I did say to her "Cacao, that is your grand son and you should be nice to him". Before anything else happened though, Joe Byrne went flying over at full speed straight towards Cacao, obviously going to defend his brother (as if Ned Kelly needs defending!) and Cacao took one look at this black boy who had her in his sights and she turned tail and ran. I did wonder at the time if the reason that Ned Kelly ran to her in the first place is because from the distance between them when he first spotted her, it is entirely possible that he thought she was his mum because Cacao and Drambuie are very similar in appearance. Joe Byrne is in "one of those moods" today and his aim for the day is to irritate as many of his brothers/sisters/mums, and adult cats he sees, as much as possible. He has been annoying them by sneaking up behind everyone and jumping straight up into the air to land on their backs and heads which obviously they really do not appreciate a great deal. I am wondering as I type this just how long his antics will last before one of his mothers smacks him.

Amazed, absolutely totally amazed at Ned Kelly's latest act. Speechless actually! (makes a change for me I know). I went into the kitchen to sort out the babies' breakfast and when it was ready, I opened the door, the babies flew into the kitchen, I don't know why when they know they get fed in the back room, and then they all came out of the kitchen when they heard me rattle the newspaper because they knew breakfast was going to appear. I checked that everyone was out of the kitchen, closed the door behind me but only saw 4 babies around the plate. Ned Kelly was missing. I went back into the kitchen, couldn't see him, pulled out the rubbish bin, looked behind the washing machine and he still wasn't there. I came back into the back room and saw him approaching the plate. But what stunned me was the fact that he had something attached to the back of him. Upon closer inspection, I realised this was a "poo". He had been in the litter tray, about to do his business, got halfway through when I put the plate down, and because he was more interested in food than anything else, he had climbed out of the tray with a poo still hanging out of his bottom, he then started eating and continued to eat for 5 minutes (with the poo hanging out), before leaving the plate to go back in the litter tray to finish what he had started. Okay, yes, I should be thrilled to bits at the fact that he is so very well litter trained, as well as the fact that he now has a wonderful appetite and appears to be growing at long last, however, why on earth does he not understand that the 2 should never be combined! I have seen a lot of weird things during all of my litters but this was an absolute first. Joe Byrne is certainly going to grow up to be the miniature black panther as discussed on Siamese Cat Chat. His current weight stands at 770 grams and he is now 55 grams HEAVIER than Caffreys who is the biggest baby in the Pints litter. Mind you, one of his grandfathers, Chico owned by Keith Sillis, is a very large boy, and his own father, Sheridans is also massive so I guess it's safe to say that Joe Byrne is going to be a big boy. He also has now decided that the downstairs part of the home is no longer enough for him because I had been in the bathroom cleaning litter trays and when I was about to walk back down the stairs I noticed a Black Oriental lying down on the top step. I did have to have a second glance because I only have 2 Oriental Blacks in the home and this one was smaller than my two. I then realised that it was Joe Byrne who obviously decided he would be the first one to check out the rest of the house.

Ned Kelly is just trouble with a Capital T as Dave and Jan were able to witness for themselves yesterday. So far, Elaine has not seen her boy in action as when she last saw him, he was much younger. If she could see him now, which I'm sure she will do soon, I have no doubts at all that she may well start having 2nd thoughts about this boy sharing her home. This will be counterbalanced though by the fact that she is also having Caffreys who is nowhere near as naughty as Ned Kelly. I am getting nowhere with the diaries today, the only photos so far are ones that Graham took yesterday (mainly of Ned naturally!). I took some this morning of the children sleeping, yet they all turned out like absolute rubbish and can't be used. I truly am losing the enthusiasm for these entries today. At this rate it will be midnight before I even get them online. The trouble is that every time I start an entry, something else crops up in my email that demands attention so the diary is left as it is until I'm able to get back to it. Like for example, I have just found some spare minutes to type everything up until this point, and now the babies are awak which means I must go and cook some scrambled eggs for them so the diary will be left again for another 20 minutes. As you can see by the very last photos though, the scrambled eggs were well worth the wait and the babies love them. Of course the problem with offering scrambled eggs is that you can't cook them until the babies wake up and once they are cooked, I then add a little Hi Life, or cheese, etc. to them but I still have to wait until the eggs cool down a bit before I can give them to the babies. This means that while I'm in the kitchen silently willing the eggs to cool down, the babies are throwing themselves at the kitchen door demanding to be fed. Joe Byrne is such a darling, a real cuddle bunny and a very active young man. And tomorrow, I am definitely going to have some photos of him in the diary for Lee and Susie and I shall also be telling Graham that from now on, he must take photos of all the babies if he has the camera, not just one or two of them.

Both diaries are exactly the same today and without any photos unfortunately. The reason for this is that quite simply, I've not had the time to get the diary done. We spent all of this morning and part of the afternoon cleaning out the garage and getting rid of a load of junk and then we spent some time with the fish tanks and those 2 jobs really took up the majority of the day. Then in the afternoon, we had the most wonderful visit from Dave and Jan. It was so great to see them again and they had some lovely cuddles with the babies, some of whom proved that they really as as mischievous as I have been saying, particularly Ned Kelly! It was such a really lovely afternoon just spending time with our friends, and showing off our cats and kittens yet again. They were also able to verify that Graham has in fact "stolen" my babies as they now spend the majority of their sleeping time either on or under his desk. Their play time however is spent all over the downstairs part of the home. They haven't really ventured upstairs yet, but I am sure that will happen during the next few weeks.

Ned Kelly is still joining everyone else around the plate at meal times so this is excellent news. I do not think he will ever be as large as Joe Byrne because I think Joe is going to be a huge boy, with his dad's build, however, he appears to have his mother's wonderful head shape, whereas Ned Kelly is showing signs of having a type and body shape just like his grandmother which will be lovely as Cacao is such a striking cat. Ned Kelly had some rather special attention today in the form of a visitor named Tina of Maroochydore Siamese and Orientals and her husband Tony, who like me, is also an Aussie. When I first started breeding, this wonderful lady was one of my mentors and now matter how stupid my questions were, Tina always took the time to answer and to give me advice. She has helped me through so many difficult times and up until today though, we had never actually met each other, so this has been a really special day for me. It was so lovely to show off my cats and my babies to Tina and Tony. I think the timing is wonderful because Tina is a real "Red" person so it's great that I had a little red baby here for her to have some cuddles with. It was also lovely for Tina to see Amaretto again because Amaretto's sire was bred and and owned by Tina and she hadn't seen Retto since she was a very young baby. I can't believe that we are at the 6 weeks stage of our Bush Rangers' lives already. This has come about so very quickly and already the boys are showing signs of turning into proper little kittens, particularly Joe Byrne. I do not see the babies as often now that Graham has stolen them and they prefer to play around, under and on top of his desk and I really miss not having them here in the back room with me. However, they have to be allowed to grow up and as much as I would love to remain little and with me forever, life just does not work like that.