It was quite a sad day today as Ugly Duckling has now left us which means we have come to the end of our Tails of Hans Christian Anderson kitten diary. It was so lovely to see Connie and David again and I am positive that Ugly Duckling, who will now be known as "Bruce Lee", is going to have a wonderful life with his new family. At the moment he is an only cat, but very soon, he will be joined by Pistachio who is one of our "Nuts" babies. This leaving day actually went incredibly smoothly and despite having had such a very hectic day, I was actually extremely organised by the time Connie and David arrived and everything was fine. Ugly Duckling surprised us all by settling down in her carrier, and having a lot of fun with his toy mouse that his mum and dad had bought him. He didn't cry once and was extremely calm. I just hope he continued to be chilled out on the journey home. Like the rest of our babies who have left home, we will miss him terribly, but we couldn't have found a better family for him than Connie and David. We know he will be spoilt rotten and totally adored. Connie has waited quite a long time for this little man and we are very grateful to Connie and David for giving our little boy such a special home.

This does mean that we have now reached the end of yet another Schimmel Kitten diary, although at the present time, we still have 6 kitten diaries currently running. Our Tails of Hans Christian Anderson have been an adorable litter and we are very proud of all of them.

Today, 2 of our babies left us, Little Tuk and London. As they both went to the same home, their respective "Leaving Days" are identical. The day started off quite well, Coral and Jill arrived and it was really lovely to see Coral again, even though she was taking 2 of our children from us. It was also great to see Jill as well although I was rather jealous of the lovely tan :) After some cuddles with the babies, Coral and I went through the paperwork and I did show her the kitten pack but then put it back in the kitchen so Ashanti couldn't spray on it! The moment Coral put the carrier down most of our adult cats all wanted to check it out, some, as per usual, thought that perhaps they were going somewhere too so they were rather excited. Despite the fact that both Little Tuk and London are Oriental Blacks, and despite the fact that they are both cousins, you couldn't get 2 more different personalities than these 2 girls. London is an adoring child, such a cuddler and a total sweetheart. Little Tuk is a real little Madame and oh boy is she going to make Coral's life difficult I think. With Little Tuk, unless she is in the mood, you simply do not pick her up for cuddles because she is far too snobby for that. She won't hesitate to give you "that look" should you dare to try and make her do something she doesn't want to do. They really are such a contrast and a very interesting mix indeed. For some new families, it is possible they could be hard work for the first few days, but with Coral, definitely not. Not only is Coral an experienced cat mum and really knows her stuff, she is an amazing lady who will know exactly what to do with her 2 girls. They are such very lucky children to be going to live with Coral. I know full well she will make their settling in period as easy as possible and I also know that Coral has the patience of a Saint which she will need with these two girls :) I really did feel that this "Leaving Day" went so incredibly well, as I'm sure Coral did. Approximately an hour and a half after the babies left us, the phone rang, I had just popped out and Graham answered it. Yep, it was Coral. Turns out that some idiot cat breeder not only gave Coral a kitten pack, but also her own car/house keys! When I had been shopping the day before and bought the stuff for the kitten pack, as per normal, prior to bringing the shopping into the home, I threw my car keys in one of the shopping bags. Not realising it, they were still in the darn bag that had the kitten pack in. So, a trip to Coral's was in order :) It didn't take too long to get there and it was so lovely to see the girls again, both of whom had gone into hiding. London came out when she heard my voice, but not Little Tuk. Oh no, she was having none of it and would not even respond to me. So I quite literally dragged her out from under the chest which did not impress her but she'll get over it :) After a quick chat with Coral, and look at some fantastic patio and window screens, it was time to leave as I had to get back for the next set of 2 hourly feeds. Coral had also asked me to bring a bottle of our own water with us (something we normally always provide but I had forgotten this time around) so she could mix it with her own tap water. Guess where the bottle was when I arrived at Coral's to pick up the keys? Yep, on my kitchen sink! I'd left that at home. Poor Coral must wonder just what sort of insane woman bred her two girls. Whereas Graham, is convinced his wife has definitely lost the plot. But he was very good natured and did not complain once about driving me out to Coral's :) I've already had a lovely update from Coral and I know we will be in touch regularly and we are just so delighted to have found the perfect cat mum for our girls, we could not have asked for a better life than the one Little Tuk and London will have with Coral.

We now only have 1 more Tails of Hans Christian Anderson to leave home and that is Ugly Duckling. He will be leaving on September 16th so please check back then for the final update to this kitten diary.

I had been totally organised for Ice Maiden leaving, unlike poor Snow Queen in the previous entry. However.................................due to a 12 hour labour that went on from 9pm last night until just after 9am this morning, I think it's fairly safe to say this was the quickest kitten leaving that has ever occurred. Normally when our kitten families come, they do like to stay a little while but when poor Julia and Greg arrived, I really didn't know if I was coming or going. Both Julia and Greg are really lovely people and Ice Maiden will have a great home with them, and she will also have a playmate in the form of another Oriental kitten which is fantastic. It's always so difficult for the babies when they leave home because they have so many playmates here and when they move in with their new kitten families, they can feel quite alone for the first few days. I just hope it will not be too long before she becomes best friends with her new house mate. Despite the rather rapid visit, I did feel all was going according to plan, until right at the very end when Ashanti, bless him, decided to prove just how "manly" he was by spraying on Julia's bag, the folder with the kitten paperwork, and the bag with the kitten pack in it <sigh>. He really is a very trying boy at times. So whilst giving Ashanti evil looks, I cleaned up the spray and sure enough, within 5 minutes he'd done it again! Of course I had to get a totally new bag for the kitten pack. Ice Maiden had been asleep when Julia and Greg arrived and I rather hoped she would stay in a sleepy mood and then would actually rest all the way home. She is the 4th of our babies to go and so far, the other 3 have all settled in incredibly well without any problems at all and I've had some lovely updates from our new families. Hopefully it will be the same for Ice Maiden. I know that her new mum and dad will do everything possible to make her settling in period as less stressful as possible and I do think Ice Maiden is a lucky girl to be going to such a caring family. The next of our Tails of Hans Christian Anderson to leave us will be Little Tuk. She will be going, along with London, on September 6, 2007 so please check back for a further update then.

This has got to be the worst leaving day we've every experienced :( Today, at 9am, our beautiful Snow Queen left us with her fantastic new mum, Viv. Normally, I am one of the most organised people in the world when it comes to our babies' leaving but this was really nothing short of a disaster. I was showing yesterday in Bristol with Cacao and Ashanti, and as always, show days are extremely long and tiring days. My plan had been to come home from the show, go to Tesco to pick up a kitten pack for Viv, do the paperwork and make sure everything was ready for the following morning. All of that went out the window yesterday afternoon when Graham telephoned me to tell me that Amaretto had gone into labour! So instead of coming home and doing what was needed for Snow Queen, I flew home from the show and then relieved Graham of midwife duties and the rest of my evening was spent in the bedroom with Amaretto. This meant, no kitten pack and no darn paperwork. So I was up early this morning to try and get the paperwork complete for Snow Queen and the next disaster to strike was the darn printer had run out of colour ink and was very low on black in <sigh>. I managed to print off the important parts, and poor Viv didn't even get a folder to put her paperwork in. I did ask Viv if she could pop back in a week's time or so as I wanted to re-print some of the paperwork and laminate it and also want to give her the kitten pack that she missed out on. What was worse is that I had forgotten to charge the camera batteries prior to the show, then last night I took photos of our brand new babies, and as such, when I tried to take a couple of photos of Snow Queen for her special Leaving Day, the batteries were well and truly dead and I couldn't find the power lead. So this was just a total and utter nightmare. Viv, bless her, and her friend Carol, were both extremely forgiving of absolutely everything and I have no doubts whatsoever that Snow Queen is going to a remarkable home. She will have the company of Heli, who is Viv's beautiful Chocolate Point Siamese lady, as well as the company of Digger (brother to our own Tuaca) who belongs to Viv's sister. It is always lonely for our babies when they leave their extended family here but she will have other playmates and I have no doubts at all that she will settle in to her new home extremely well. She is a very lucky little girl to have the new mum that she does. Snow Queen is the first of our Tails of Hans Christian Anderson to leave us, and I did grab 15 minutes this morning upstairs with her to say good bye and to tell her to be a good girl, prior to Viv arriving. The next of our Tails to leave us will be Ice Maiden as she is going home with her new family on Saturday so please check back then for a further update to this kitten diary.