Bas, the cat just moved in with us

I'm always a cat person, but I've never actually kept a cat before. After I moved to Holland, living with a guy who is also a big cat lover, I know I would, for the first time in my life, live with a cat. We moved to a cozy little house in Leiden. It's not a very well furnished or a very luxurious house. As a matter of fact, it's rather old and shabby when we first saw it. Obviously, this house has been through a lot. It has survived a fire and was the home of over 30 guinea pigs, a few cats, a few dogs and a few chickens. Afterall, it is still a very cozy little house with a small garden at the back. Before we moved into the house, we spent some time painting and cleaning the house. One day, after painting a wall in the living room, i took a break in our garden. Suddenly, I felt a pair of curious eyes looking at me. I looked through the bamboo screen of my neighbor and saw a silhouette of a fluffy thing. When I look closer, it was a big cat. I kept meowing and tried to communicate with this new neighbor. He was not shy at all and he managed to climb into our garden through a secret passage behind the big pine tree. I think it's love at the first sight. When I saw this big fluffy cat and its friendly and curious eyes, I fell in love with it. It has grey hair with black strips, a long and bushy tail and yellow green eyes, just like a little tiger. It wasn't shy at all. It's in fact a very cuddly cat. On the second day we were there, it was already nudging our hands and walking around our feet. Finally, we had a chance to talk to our neighbor and found our that it was her cat, named Bas.

Bas kept his daily visit for the next few days. First, he was just wandering in the garden, fliggering the garbage. Whenever we were sitting outside, he would appear gracefully from the secret passage and come to us for a pat. He sure liked the attention and the companies i guess. Not before long, he started strolling first into our kitchen, then to the rest of the house. It seemed like he was checking how the progress was or if we were slacking off. At first, we kind of chased him out of the house, but later we just let him be. So, eventually he moved his way up to the second floor and started exploring every corner in our house.

When we first moved into the house, I always got startled by Bas' sudden entrance. He would come into the house from all different entrances. Sometimes, he would just jump in and out. Sometimes, he would stay for a short time and jump out again.

However, for one week, he spent more and more time in our house. We were so used to his presence in our house already. We weren't even surprised to see him jump in. He usually walked around out feet when we were cooking or eating. Since he wasn't our cat at that time, Harm just told me not to feed him. I couldn't help feeling that Bas was totally hungry, but I just had to be cruel and not give him any food. Later on one night, when we were sleeping, we suddenly heard a big bang coming from the next room. Before we could get up and find out what it was, Bas had already jumped onto our bed and started kneading on our blanket. We obviously left the computer room window opened and that gave Bas a good spot to break in. He was purring and walking around on us and finally fell asleep on our bed by our feet.

We first thought that he was only here for a night, kind of like a sleep over thing. But he kept coming back almost at the same time every night. After a few night, I just couldn't sleep until I know he was in. I started to question about our neighbour. I didn't seem to see her for a week. Later on, Harm talked to her and found out that she was on vacation, that's why Bas was just a bit hunger for attentions. However, she has returned home, Bas still spent most of his days and nights with us. About 2 weeks later, our neighbour came and asked us if Bas was in our house, because she had not seemed him for a whole week already and also Bas didn't touch the food she prepared for him. We told her that he had been spending most of the time in our house. She was worried that Bas was not eating, and we didn't feed him either. Then, she cleared up her cupboard and brought all Bas' food over, in desperate she said, "He doesn't eat at home anymore, he doesn't return home anymore. He left me I think. Maybe you can try to eat if he eats at your house." From that day on, we officially adopted Bas and he's staying with us till now.

I still feel sorry for our neighbour, because I felt like I took away the cat that has accompanied her for 2 years. But obviously, this is nothing we can do. Bas is a very special cat that has his own will. According to our neighbour, Bas also just walked into her house 2 years ago and decided to stay with her. I guess it's just one of his moving plans. I don't know how long he's planning to stay with us, I guess until he gets fed up with us and choose to take off again. Bas is the most special or strange cat I've ever met. In the future, I'll tell you more about his weird yet super cute behaviours.