The Cats of Eco-Gites of Lenault

So you have Cats of Instagram and Caturday on Twitter but today I give you the Cats of Eco-Gites of Lenault.

With many new guests arriving at the gite we often get asked how many cats we have.  And the answer?  "Four and a half!" we reply.  Read on and all will be revealed.

When we moved to France 10 years ago we came with our English cat, Henry.  He is still with us, although very old now and not too well.  I fear all too soon we may have to say our final goodbyes to this very English of gentlemen cats.  You can read more about him here - Henry's Box.

Henry adapted very well to rural life and was very happy to no longer have to suffer the terrorising antics of the nasty cat who used to live nearby in England ... and he took to mousing like a true-born rural cat.  However there were simply too many mice for a lone cat so we thought he'd needed some feline help and we got ourselves 2 kittens: grey Smoky and and black Firkin.  Sadly Smoky got run over and it was apparent that Firkin was as devastated as we were so we knew we needed a replacement cat .... and the boys wanted another grey one.  Luckily for us grey is a popular cat colour in Normandy and we soon located a male kitten ... but somehow managed to come home with a male and a female kitten.  The female, now called Fumée was so nervous we felt her owners would struggle to home her and she adored her brother, Foggy.  She is still terribly nervous and will not let us catch her but she is a brilliant mouser and amazingly faithful; she will sit a couple of meters away from me as I garden .... just do NOT try to stroke her!

Mice now pretty much under control we had no intention of getting any more cats until Moo exploded into our lives.  A scraggy parasite infested bundle of fur and bone decided SHE was going to make Eco-Gites of Lenault HER home and a year on she definitely rules the roost. 

Now the bright-eyed mathematicians amongst you will have noticed that with Henry, Firkin, Fumée, Foggy and Moo we are up to 5 cats. Correct ... but Foggy is a very independent cat to the point that he will disappear for months on end. We may get fleeting glimpses of him in the fields and I suspect he comes home some nights to take his fill of cat biscuits but he is definitely not here full time. Several times he has gone for so long and we have not seen him we fear the worst and then one morning you'll be greeted by his characteristic deep meow and he'll act like he only saw you the day before, demanding food and cuddles in equal amounts. But taking account of how much time he actually spends here I think even saying we have him half the time is perhaps an exaggeration.

Are you a cat owner? How many do you have and do you have a wanderer of Foggy proportions?