I put the Zurich version here, so I figured I may as well put the Seytroux version here as well *lol*

First thanks a million times for looking after our fluffies and our place for us.

They’re very unique individuals. It’s hard to imagine two cats more different.

Rupert is the more ‘traditional’ cat. He likes window ledges, long naps and time by himself upstairs, just chilling out. He’s initially suspicious of humans, but will warm up to you during your stay I’m sure.
He’s the big one, Red & White and Fluffy all over. His attention needs are simple – from time to time, he’ll sit up straight a few meters away and look you directly in the eye and meow. If you don’t respond immediately in an appropriate manner, he may meow again. If you ignore him, he’ll park himself on the floor and wait for you to work it out.

What he wants is for you to throw something at him. His favourite thing is kibble. The hard, round, dark brown cat food that you will find in the bit Royal Cannin plastic tub in the washing machine cupboard. It’s quite solid and you can ricochet it around the floor. He will lose all dignity and scamper after it like a maniac. It usually only takes 5-10 of these before he has had enough and will flake out.

Other than that, all he needs is a soft place to sleep (he actually sleeps mostly on the windowsills), but he will occasionally join you on the bed. Especially if there is only one of you in the bed (he likes a lot of room to flake out).

Rupert will meow at the entrance door when he wants to go upstairs. He’s usually reasonably patient and doesn’t scratch at it. He’ll just serenely sit there until you realize he requires your service. Then he’ll graciously allow himself to be let upstairs. He can spend hours and hours up there quite happily, and will generally either meow to be let back downstairs (hard to hear) or will just wait until he hears you open the door and will then make his way at a relaxed and leisurely pace to the downstairs part.

Rupert is not allowed outside at the moment, as he has no collar on and hasn’t been back in the barn long enough. They recommend 6 weeks of living at a location before you let a cat outside again, so we’re just going to play it safe and not let him out. He doesn’t seem to mind or miss it.

Aoife is the little strawberry blonde neurotic fluffball. Also known as ‘Princess’. She is the most affectionate cat we’ve ever known and also the most batshit crazy. She likes human company, human company and more human company. She also likes shoelaces. She also loves cardboard boxes of all sizes. She will very quickly worm her way into your heart.

The only thing that seems to upset her is being left alone. She gets a bit neurotic and a bit crazy if you leave her alone for too long, and sometimes has even left dirty little protests around the house (usually on soft furnishings!). The best way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to be fussy with her litter trays, making sure they’re perfect, not just normal, and also to smother her with attention at every opportunity She’s very appreciative of attention and will happily snuggle up to her humans on the couch, or on your lap if you sit at a computer chair, or leaning up against you in bed, or nuzzled at your feet.

Sometimes, at night, her “dusk mice hunter” mode will be inadvertently engaged. Also known as “crazy mode”. She will spontaneously decide that she needs to check the inside of every drawer, every wardrobe and every cupboard for mice. This is a source of great frustration to her and she will meow like a maniac while she is doing this (presumably to scare the mice, but the usual effect is just annoying us). She often chooses to do this immediately after you go to bed, which is doubly and triply annoying as you hear her climbing all over everything in the boiler cupboard or scratching frantically at our underwear drawers.

Nothing will convince her that there are no mice in these cupboards. And even following her around and opening drawers for her doesn’t seem to help that much. She’s just a bit crazy in the head. I find that complete darkness will often trigger her “rest now” mode, and turn off “crazy mode”. That means all lights, lamps, candles and everything. If she’s got even a little bit of light to hunt by, it’ll keep going until she’s sure she’s done

Adorable, eh?

Aoife is not allowed upstairs (or outside, ever). The gaps in the walls upstairs are too big, she’d find her way outside or into the neighbour’s side of the flat. Rupert long ago tried that and found he was too big (and yes, I had to rescue him from the apex of the building with a 12m ladder).

Their litter trays live in the bathroom, so as to be near the disposal and the extractor fan. The litter itself is safe to go down the toilet in small amounts. I tend to use a garbage bag for removal only when emptying the entire tray. When you do empty the entire tray, the detachable hand spray in the shower with boiling hot water is a quick and easy way of getting the remnants out of the tray itself. We bought the entire Carre Four supply of kitty litter, so feel free to change as often as you like, to prevent princess from getting ‘fussy’.

Aoife goes about twice a day. Rupert goes once a day. You’ll be able to tell the difference. When Rupert has been, you’ll think that a Doberman stopped by the litter tray and left a present. Aoife leaves petite little princess presents (though hers smell awful!).

Straight down the loo and feel free to make liberal use of all the deodorizers and candles we’ve left around the place. Matt tends to use incense sticks after their smells, but I personally think that just makes the house smell like an incontinent Hari Krishna. Up to you

They can have as much dry food as they like, neither are getting fat. So just keep their dry food bowls topped off so that they can feed whenever they like.

As you already know, they get wet food once a day, usually in the evening, but whatever works for you is fine by us. It’s not a religion just a habit. Place the wet food bowls reasonably far apart as Rupert will forget that he’s massive and accidentally stand in the way so that Aoife can’t get to her bowl. He’s not being mean or greedy, he just doesn’t even notice smaller fluffy when he’s got his head in his dinner bowl.

We tend to leave a bit massive bowl of water around (or saucepan), as Rupert likes to play in the water. You’ll see him drinking from it while swishing it around with one paw. Very odd, but hey, whatever gives him a thrill. Be warned, both will drink from any glass of water left lying around or by the bed.

I think that’s it. Matt is paranoid about his ‘kids’ so any updates or photos you want to send him would be massively appreciated.

For your own amusement, there is the entire dvd collection, plus the WD box (small black box) under the TV is for plugging in hard drives or USB keys for anything you download. There is also a Wii (but barely any games), and obviously you have the wifi.

Please use anything in the cupboards you fancy, there’s nothing that’s precious or special there. The only technical difficulty I expect you will encounter is that there doesn’t seem to be enough power plugs so the Coffee Machine and the TV black box are sharing an adapter at the moment. There’s more coffee in the cupboard above the kettle (and normal plunger coffee there as well).

And don’t hesitate to send us an email if there is something we can get you from Singapore or Australia on our way back.

I think that covers it