OMG, we really are becoming the “cat ladies”!

I woke up this morning and as I passed the French windows I saw 3 cats queuing at the door for breakfast!  My step son teases us that we are in danger of becoming like the cat ladies you see on telly…you know the ones with hundreds of cats all over the place.  We always tell him that he is wrong and technically at this moment we don’t actually own a single cat.  The cat we did have has decided she prefers living with Pam’s mum (yes, after nearly 12 years she has moved out and found a more understanding human who caters for her every need as I did just faster!).  So, officially Pam and I are cat-less.  You next door neighbours however have a multitude of cats and one by one they are migrating to this side of the fence.  We started with “Tink” named because when we first moved in we would walk into our locked cottage and hear the tink tink of a bell and we would find this little cat in our house.  It took us ages to figure out how she was getting in.  At first she was very timid and flew whenever we found her.  That of course made us feel bad so we wanted to let her know we wouldn’t harm her so that is the reason we first fed her.  Yes, you can see where this is heading.  After a while she started to let us stroke her for a few seconds before running off.  Over the winter she seemed to always be out.  Now we were pretty sure that she belonged next door but there were so many cats we were never quite sure and she was definitely at the end of the queue for food as she was very small.  Mind you the competition next door must be fierce with 2 Labs, 3 chickens and at least 4 cats.  So if she was out and it was going to be below freezing we would let her in to stay the night.  Which soon turned into letting her stay whatever nights she wanted to.  Within a few days of her getting to know and trust us, more cats started to show up.  Pam would feel bad and put a bowl of food out for them.  Hence this morning’s queue for breakfast at our back door.  The word is obviously out now.  Go to number 40 they are big softies!  I still don’t think this put us in the realm of the “cat ladies” but I have to admit when you are buying copious amounts of cat food and you don’t own a cat that you are getting pretty close.