Butter wouldn't melt.

I've got 2 cats.  There is the *couch potato* aka Fat Cat [he's not really, we just call him that] aka Marlow  &  then there is Kirby. 

Kirby is a most beautiful cat.  Photogenic.  Adorable.  Loving.  Quirky.  It is the quirky that is the problem.

Marlow has all the wonderful attributes of a ragdoll: big, heavy, gentle, floppy & generally underfoot.  He is very attached without needing to be on you & he is the sort of self~confident, plumy~tailed, beautiful cat that attracts comments like: Gosh!  Isn't he gorgeous!  And he knows it!  With his *Cleopatra eyes* & outgoing personality he is the cat my friends smooch over.  It is never Marlow interrupting prayer meeting with yowls of:  I've got a present for youuuuu...

This was Kirby the day we brought him home.  While Marlow was hiding & quivering with fright, Kirby was mesmerized by what he could see outside the window  & he could not wait to get out & investigate. And that is the problem!

At some point or other Kirby has managed to destroy every flyscreen in the house. Initially he just went straight through them but Kirby is probably the smartest cat I've ever owned & eventually he just perched innocently on the windowsill & gradually worked the rubber free until he could squeeze through.

Lots of people would probably just let the cat rip but we are responsible owners & our cats are in at night.  Apart from anything else I don't like being brought snakes & rodents & that is what happens when Kirby goes night hunting.

Last summer we sweltered.  The only way to keep Kirby in was to shut every window in the house & I can assure you no~one enjoyed that during a Queensland summer!  As fast as I could mend the screens Kirby was through them until they were no longer worth the mending.

The MOTH has finally conceded that regular screens are not going to keep Kirby in where he belongs. He has bought me a roll of aluminium screen wire.  It is not the special pet wire, which costs a fortune & then some, but it seems to have done the trick.  I have been working my way round the downstairs windows redoing the screens, though I have taken the precaution of putting them in backwards so the temptation to try removing the rubber is removed. Not that he hasn't tried!  Each window has been thoroughly inspected ~ & tested!  So far, so good!

Meanwhile Queensland has started its summer with a huge bang.  Each afternoon the thunderstorms roll in with booms & flashes but while Kirby is hiding safely under one of our big lounge chairs Marlow is perched on a windowsill with his nose pressed up hard against the screen watching the world light up.