Whenever the brothers come out of their room for a roustabout Maud hisses at them; also an ongoing singsong growl that can continue unabated like an eternal concert in Hell!!!!! At the same time that she loathes their presence in her territory she is interested in and attracted by them. All her emotions seem to fire at once, just as, when I returned from a long stay in Denmark, Maud purred and hissed at me at the same time. Maud is mixed up!

The Copkits have reacted in different ways to Maud's unwelcome. Big lioncat Matalike tries to sit near her and calm her down. He is confused by her but wants to make friends. Little Grey, meanwhile, lost patience with her almost immediately and now makes her the butt of his well-crafted jokes. When she opens a door to visit her tray he will be on the other side of the door with a startling hiss-boo. If she walks down what she thinks is an empty corridor he will appear from inside a box and stomp on her tail, claws out, then hide in the box again. After one encounter they had an exchange of swipes. Maud won. Little Grey, who in all his life has never won a fight, was left humiliated with a cut nose. He has had many cut noses and went into a deep huff, returning to Maud to take coup with more intense, vengeful jokes.

I have been in despair that Maud would ever live easily with the two charming streetcats. But yesterday she and Little Grey ate together: their greed for chicken overriding their cat wars. I try to get them to eat together, but it usually ends up with the water bowl upside down. But I will keep on with it. There is some progress, though fitful.

On the occasion this photo was taken Maud seemed in some distress. She sat on an old school desk in a corridor and sang a song of her distress to an audience of me and the Copkits sitting below. The performance went on for hours: it was like listening to Shirley Bassey sing GOLDFINGER over and over, forgetting more and more words as she went on.....But after the bawling was over, her audience having drifted away, she sought out the brothers' company. It seemed some barrier had come down.