Morris is back to feeling comfortable enough to wander around the house and even nap here.

With Nysse being outside more, I’ve been leaving the garden door ajar so that he can get back in when he wants. Now that Morris is also getting bolder, it’s difficult to keep track of which cat is where. I don’t want to lock Nysse out, or lock Morris in overnight. And Adrian doesn’t want any cats in his bedroom when he sleeps. I’m starting to consider GPS trackers – but I can hardly put one on a cat that doesn’t even belong to us…

Also, what kind of a pathetic life do I live, when the only news worth mentioning are about the movements of cats? I need to get a life, but I don’t know how, when everything is on pause or off-limits.

I knitted nine pairs of fine wool socks in a variety of colours last years. Together with a few pairs from other sources, this is enough for sock-sufficiency. I can’t remember the last time I wore a pair of cotton socks.

The yarn for the pink ones at the top of the pile was a bit of a wild card. It looked different in the photo – the yellows and whites were more prominent – and when I saw it in reality, I wasn’t even sure if I’d use the yarn at all. On a whim I still knitted up a pair of socks, because why not. Now they’re one of my favourites. Well, many of them are my favourites, but the pink ones are my happy socks. They look like candy, I thought at first, but I’m not that much into candy really. So now I think of them as the colour of summer flowers – dahlias and cosmos.

The diseased tiger socks are still weird but they’ve grown on me as well.

There’s still room for more. I wouldn’t mind a few more variegated yarns, and a proper red. Maybe a pure orange as well. I had my eyes on some beautiful hand-dyed yarns on Instagram but then I realized that they’re all made in Britain. With Brexit, I’d get hit with VAT and customs fees and what not, and the yarns are not worth that. Damn Brits and their silly Brexit.

Here I was, pleased that Nystagmus quickly learned how to signal that he wanted the door to be opened so that he could go out. Nope – he wants the door to be opened, all right, but often not for going out but just so that he can sit there and watch and sniff and listen. We clearly have different opinions about the value of keeping the heat inside. The warmer seasons are going to be so good for him, and we should probably start looking for a cat door.

When he comes back from one of his walks – which have now grown from five minutes to fifteen and twenty – he’s all full of energy. Comes inside, races back and forth through the house, play-attacks my feet. Even if he doesn’t go all the way out, just after sitting at the door gap for a while he’s more playful and energized. I guess this is what he was missing. Not made to be an indoor cat, clearly!

Adrian, with his eyes glued to TikTok.

After a few days of practising together with me, Nysse has found the courage to go out on his own. Quite cautiously, and only for five minutes or so, but with determination and curiosity.

There’s a lot out there that still scares him. A squealing child or a passing garbage truck is enough to send him running back.

He is definitely not fond of the deep, wet snow, and sticks to the paths that I’ve trampled in the yard when I’ve been out with him. It can’t be nice to have your fluffy soft stomach brush against snow. I know I wouldn’t like it.

In other news, cats’ crepuscular lifestyle doesn’t go together well with photography, at all. At least here his dark colour comes in handy.

Who says you shouldn’t play with food? I’m not advocating for food fights or throwing spaghetti on the ceiling, but if jack-o-lanterns are OK, why wouldn’t it be equally OK to use cucumbers and grapes for sculpting?

Piles and piles of fresh snow in the garden today.

I keep taking photos of Viburnum buds almost every year, and it never gets old. I love the contrast between the vibrant pink and green of the buds and the stark white of the snow, and the tender softness of one and the sharp coldness of the other.



It’s also fascinating to see just how much snow can clump up and be supported on almost nothing. That seed head is almost all air, just a few thready, wispy stalks. If I tried to put things there and make them balance, I’d probably break the stalks and drop everything. But when fluff gets to settle there naturally, it works.

Nysse has been less active recently – sleeping more, exploring less, spending less time trying to steal food at dinnertime. If he were human, I’d say he’s acting depressed. But it’s hard to figure out what (if anything) is wrong when he can’t talk. It’s just like having a baby again.

Too little food? Entirely possible, since we’re working off standard portion sizes and random guesses.

Lonely and missing his previous family? Realizing that this is his new reality and he’s not going back?

Bored and understimulated, since he’s cooped up indoors instead of wandering around freely?

When in doubt, try everything. Which is the opposite of the scientific method where you vary one thing at a time, and probably not the best way to find out the answer, but hopefully the best way to get him happier again. We’re upping his food ration, and I’m also cautiously experimenting with taking him outdoors.

Morris has helpfully been demonstrating for Nysse how the doors work – you walk up to the line in the middle, really close, and sit there, and then a human comes and opens them. Nysse imitates him, but when I open, he just looks and listens and smells, but doesn’t actually dare go out. So I’ve gone out with him to keep him company – he seems to feel safer that way.

Morris hasn’t given up on us yet.

He turns up at the French doors every other day or so. He comes inside, where he gets an energetic but seemingly friendly nose boop from Nysse. Morris then either leaves again, or cautiously walks around the house – with Nysse trailing him to keep a close eye on things – until he gets himself into a corner that he cannot get out of without walking past Nysse, which he doesn’t dare do. I rescue him by lifting Nysse away, and he relievedly makes a beeline for the door. He mostly looks anxious about the whole experience, but he keeps coming back.

Nysse, meanwhile, exudes an air of curiosity and territorial protectiveness, but seems neither aggressive nor overly anxious. As long as Morris’ presence doesn’t bother him too much, I guess we can keep this up. I’m curious to see where their relationship goes.

The usually-annual post-Christmas party with the extended family, that we could actually have this year. I wasn’t in the mood for photography so there’s just the one, of Ingrid folding napkins.