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When the kittens arrived I kept them in the spare room for a couple of days, to acclimatise them. I'd come up and feed them and play with them and sit and read so they would get used to me. During one of these times a fly came in and buzzed around. (How? The door was shut. Never mind.) They were fascinated, following its every movement, trying to climb as high as they could to catch it. Eventually it came within reach, was caught, escaped, buzzed around a bit, was caught again, played with and finally eaten. That was fun! Where did that fly go?

Then I let them out, gradually introducing them to the rest of the house. Over the last few days they have grown in confidence, exploring all corners, jumping on the furniture, running up and down stairs and knocking things over (so far no breakages). They are particularly fond of running along behind the sofas, and jumping down behind the one in the bay window. 'What's down there?' asked Michael. 'Nothing,' I said. 'Just a lot of dead flies.' (OK, I do hoover regularly but not so much behind the sofas).

They also seem to have got the runs, although are fortunately (barring a couple of incidents) pretty good at using their litter trays. I mentioned it to the Cats Protection lady, but she thought it was probably due to the change in habitat. 'You haven't been feeding them anything strange, have you?' she asked. No, I said. Just what you recommended - one packet of wet kitten food twice a day between them and the dry food that they're used to.

This morning as they were running around I looked behind the sofa again. There are no dead flies down there any more. Just a few black bits of debris. I think I'm going to start hoovering down there regularly.