Stranger Things…

Being born and growing up on the streets there are certain sounds that I was familiar with, cars, nature, people, predators etc as they were part of my everyday life from the very beginning. Having become a family cat, when I arrived and started living with my new mummy and daddy there were a lot of noises and smells that I wasn’t familiar with. Even during the first few days being in my own new room I could hear the noises through the door. I could hear footsteps and I could tell the difference between mummy’s shoes and daddy’s shoes and their style of walking, mummy with more footsteps, daddy with less to get down the hallway. There’s other noises too though and I had no idea what these noises were. For mummy and daddy these are normal everyday noises but to me they were unfamiliar, sometimes just unusual and sometimes quite scary.

Jenny’s top tip

When adopting a blind cat or in fact any cat that hasn’t grown up in a loving human home, go about your normal daily things that you humans do. If we cats hear something that is unusual to us we’ll let you know from our body language. Generally as long as we hear your calming reassurance then we will know not to be scared. Take a kettle for example, it an unusual sound but I can tell from the noise it’s a little way away and doesn’t move (unlike the cupboard monster) and if you’re talking to me whilst making you strange hot human drinks then I know that whilst it’s noisy it’s not going to harm me . A couple of times of hearing it and it’s all good. If there’s something that’s very noisy then use it behind closed doors away from direct contact first so we can hear it but know that it won’t catch us.

In homes you have all these strange mechanical things that you use to make your lives easier…there is rain that you can turn on and off when you want, it doesn’t quite sound like any normal rain I’ve heard and then you stand under it and wash! Daddy says that is called a shower. There’s also a big thing that mummy fills with water and gets in, she calls this a bath. She closes the door when the water is running which is really annoying as I like to try to catch it and play with it but mummy says I can’t go in at first as the water is too hot and might hurt me. When it is the right temperature she opens the door and lets me in, she gets in the bath and there are all these soapy bubbles, she sits in there for ages. I like it when she does this as I jump up and sit on the side and keep her company. What strange things humans are, I’m not sure why you don’t just lick 👅 yourselves like I do?

The one good thing about when mummy and daddy wash is that afterwards they wrap themselves up in big fluffy towels and then I can sit on them, wash them again (and me) to get rid of that icky soap smell and then curl up on their lap for a snuggle. Every so often they’ll transfer me, towel and all, to the bed where I can have a proper nap.

Some things though are much noisier and when I first arrived with mummy and daddy they introduced me to carefully to things such as the big noisy cupboard monster. He is very noisy and mummy walks round the flat with him, he sucks up everything from the floor and so I stay out of his way in case he sucks me up too! I have learnt not to be too scared of him (Peppar doesn’t like him either) . I ‘watch’ him from a safe distance following him round the flat so I know exactly where he is. If I sit in my tunnel in the hallway or my perch in the living room then he generally leaves me alone but I know where I am in case I need to escape quickly. When mummy is finished with him (she called him Dyson) he goes back into the cupboard to sleep and Peppar and I have to go back round putting all the cat litter back on the floor where it belongs…mummy and daddy then say “oh Jenny” or “oh Peppar” so I know they must like us helping!

There’s other machines that they use regularly some make noises that aren’t anything to worry about such as the cooker. This means human food and hopefully some left overs for me and Peppar 😸.

Daddy’s alarm clock in the morning, this just lets us all know that they’re waking up and rushing around and then deserting us for the day! I help them get up and make sure they give Peppar and I our breakfast and then give them a proper send off before they leave. I make sure they get lots of meows, purrs and cuddles and make sure they know how much I love them – hopefully they’ll get distracted one day and stay home instead.

In the kitchen, the washing machine whilst it’s noisy it doesn’t move around or follow me, it’s just a bit stupid and goes round and round and round! Silly machine! There is however a loud growling monster that lives under the kitchen sink, it eats all our left over food and growls and snarls when he’s eating. He’s a very scary noisy monster but he doesn’t move around and mummy and daddy only feed him when the kitchen door is closed so he can’t get out from under the sink and his growling won’t scare me as much.

Other things that confuse me (they don’t scare me like the cupboard monster) is when mummy and daddy wear different shoes, they make different noises that I don’t recognise and when mummy and daddy walk around and it means for a few seconds I’m not sure who is there until I hear their familiar voices.

The other odd thing that confuses me is that there is a box on the wall that people seem to live in. They’re quiet when mummy and daddy are not home but when they come back the other people wake up. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they sound like they’re having amazing adventures and sometimes there planes, animals and all sorts of interesting noises that come out of the box. Sometimes I want to go and see the people in the wall box as I like people and want to meet them and say hello. Daddy says the wall box is called a tv and that I’m not allowed to try to reach the people in the tv to say hello like I do with mummy and daddy in the mornings when they leave and the evenings when they come home. It’s something to do with me having sharp little claws and the tv being delicate. I can however get up close to the tv people and and listen to what they have to say.

Every noise that is normal for humans living in a home is something that I have had to get used to. It’s a lot to take in and learn but with some consideration, forward thinking and patience from my mummy and daddy it isn’t difficult to get used to the noises of my new home. Now they are just part of my daily life as were the sounds of Cyprus when I was a kitten which is such a distant memory now.