In our Spanish adventure, cat Tikkel also has a role. He is demented, deaf and fat. So he is more like a Dikkel. Since he was a kitten he has been obsessed with food. He would gulp down his kibble at breakneck speed and then very sneakily pull the bowl away from his brother with one little paw. He stood there and looked at it, usually we intervened. A stern "No, Nickel" was enough to stop his attempt, his ears stuck flat back and a semi-nonsense look in his eyes. Nowadays he often has this look when he enters the house and does not seem to see us, sometimes accompanied by one loud miaow. Because of his dementia he forgets that he just ate. When he wakes up or has just come from outside, he is the first to trudge to his bowl. His rhythm consists of sleeping-eating-sleeping-eating-round outside-eating-sleeping. So it is better that there is something in his bowl otherwise he panics. Then he meows at a very high sound level, impossible to ignore. A stern "Hush Crescent" does not help because he is deaf after all. Constantly having to get out of bed to fill his bowl gave us a chronic lack of sleep. Nowadays we just put a big bowl of kibble down, that reassures him. You will understand that he is growing quite a bit. Every week at least 1 cm in size I estimate. In any case his belly measures twice the opening of the cat flap.
So far he still manages to squeeze through. Suddenly there is an extra half meter of cat, once through it everything shoots like a harmonica back into Crescent shape. He doesn't go outside very often anymore. I think that's why he first sits in front of the window for fifteen minutes to see if the coast is clear. No cat wants to make such an entrance at the competition of course. We can already see how his entrance into Yunquera will be. Two skinny Spanish cats who roll over laughing at the sight of such an unprecedented voluminous cat.
Fortunately, Tikkel is fearless. Even though he is deaf, fat and demented, he is still The Devil of the neighborhood. Chases down every cat and dog with a flick, asserting his superiority by calmly rolling over under another cat's nose. You won't hurt me. Perhaps precisely because he is deaf and demented. Hopefully this will help him get through the coming ordeals. Three days drugged in a car, stretching his legs in a strange (hotel) environment with strange smells and then getting used to a new home without underfloor heating where it smells like citrus, pine and summer. Will he belly-slide again like he moved through the garden his first year in Noordwijk? Will he find his place in the territory of two girl cats who are not for the faint of heart? Will he discover what a paradise he has ended up in, with nocturnal hunting parties for mice, grasshoppers and geckos... In any case, plenty of sunny sleeping spots to live out his old age.
