The trip from Transylvania

It was lockdown 2020 when I found myself seeking out a cat companion. My 17 year old cat Mali had passed away that summer and I was thinking it may be time to open our home to another cat. I'd have happily got another elderly cat, but the husband was most insistent that he didn't want that heartbreak again so soon and would rather have kittens. That's right. KittenS.

I was completely new to the adoption process. My childhood cat, Jasper, was a stray. Mali had already had multiple homes and came to live with us because she hated the other cats she lived with. There was a lot of competition, and the criteria is strict. It's for good reason of course, but some rescues do seem to operate a tick box exercise without considering the full circumstances of the potential pet owner.

After a few too many disappointments, I reluctantly had to give up with my 'charity begins at home' mentality and consider other options. It had to be a rescue, so when I found an organisation that worked with Romanian rescuers to get them homes abroad I thought it was worth a go. I filled in a form honestly expecting to hear nothing back.

Of course the major con of adopting an animal from abroad is that you don't get to meet them first. Personally I think this is really more of an issue with a dog where you do really need a dog that suits your lifestyle. I have yet to meet a cat I didn't like, and I don't mind if a cat isn't big on affection. Besides, with a kitten you don't know what their personality is going to be like anyway.

The problem was I really didn't like the idea of choosing a cat. I'd never done it before, and I hate it when people insist on a specific sex or colour. As we were after a pair, we reserved the remaining two of a litter. The three girls and one boy were found dumped outside a dog rescuer's house in Transylvania and had to be transported several hours away so they could be looked after by a cat fosterer.

They did look pretty funny in their photos. My brother remarked that Mica looked like Sonic the Hedgehog. Opal had a huge head and angry expression, like the Queen of Hearts. She is in perfect proportion now but she still gets that angry look on her face at times. As you can probably tell the naming theme was Garfield and we weren't overly keen on it.

Foolishly I thought the cats would arrive via plane. Nope. It was a long time before they came to the UK as they have to be booked onto specialist transport vans that are often shared with other rescues. The most anxiety inducing bit was that they were already 5 months old by the time they arrived, so the poor sods had to be booked in for their spay/neuter as soon as they arrived.

It's a long trip and the drivers do of course have to regularly stop for comfort breaks and to feed and clean up the cats and dogs on board. Once they got to France they stopped for the night and the dogs had an opportunity to stretch their legs in a secure area. The worse bit was the length of time it took for security to let them cross the border- not ideal when there are animals on board!

Once the vans were in the UK, they split up with one covering the north, one covering the midlands, and the last covering the south. We were kept updated via a Facebook group with the drivers advising on their next stop. We had cat carriers ready so the driver could pop them in upon their arrival and they were handed over along with their Romanian passports, vet records and transport paperwork.

We fed the cats first thing and they were unsurprisingly pretty hungry. After scarfing down two pouches each they ran around the house for hours on end before eventually collapsing into Mali's old bed. My first impression of them was that they were remarkably dog like. I suppose being around a bunch of dogs at an early age may have confused them.