Things fall apart as the quote goes: bearing that in mind it's hardly surprising my expectations for Shed II have done similar. What went wrong first was basic planning followed closely by a nasty change weatherwise. I'll deal with the weather first which changed from dry to deluge after I'd put up the walls, but before I managed the roof. I quickly slung some beams across and covered them with a tarpaulin which I fixed in place. I had to leave it like that for a few days as I was off to Paris and London for a few days leaving Vicki the Volunteer in charge of cat care per norm.

I got back late on Monday night, far too dark to check on the Shed. Tuesday morning I squelched down the garden path... even from a distance something looked wrong. The beams had shifted allowing the tarp to fill with gallons and gallons of rain water. The weight of this had sprung the joints of the planks and the place had kind of imploded. There was no option but to deconstruct and start from scratch.

More - ha! some forethought was required and the first job was to level the ground it was to stand on. Neville, the jobbing gardener, made swift work of this and re-building restarted. Again the rain held off until just the before the roof went on. The tarp kept the rain out vetically, but it seeped in horizontally seeking, of course, the lowest level. I forked the earth, drained the water and laid a tarp on the floor.

One phone call changed everything: the people I had borrowed the fences from, intending to buy some time in the future, had got bored with waiting and sold them. The buyers would be collecting Sunday morning. Well, bugger I down dead (which I believe is a West Country saying). Leaving it to the last possible minute, I left the job until Saturday afternoon. I gave the Dwellers a big and tasty feed ensuring they'd all be inside for when I blocked their entrances/exits. I more or less got away with it, though some of the older ones, sensing trouble, tried for the run.

The enclosure came down reasonably easily: there was a moment of pain and crisis when I misunderstood a basic law of civil engineering or something, but the stars soon cleared and the bump a few days later. The fences were duly collected and the Dwellers settled grumpily to a life inside - they weren't missing much as the weather remained "autumnal". However, it couldn't last, it just wasn't fair on them, and so Tuesday afternoon the evacuation of Bourpeuil was launched.

The first two boxes contained Hissy and Flatpak in one and Bobcat and Laurel in the other. Feral Laurel had been stunningly easy to catch, running full tilt into a catbox she mistook for a sleeping one. The next trip, the same afternoon, removed Callie and Dora and their brothers Hugo and Rollo. That was enough for one day: carrying two catboxes each with two cats inside the two kilometres between Bourpeuil and St Paixent couldn't be anyone's idea of fun.

At the house Fatnip and Gus promptly mixed it with Hissy and Flatpak (Hiss still hasn't calmed down); feral Laurel vanished completely (she appears at mealtimes but even after a week I've not found her hidey-hole). Hugo also went for a place in the arsehole-proving stakes with the much bigger house cats, but lost interest when he discovered Ix. Day Two and my arms decided that smaller cats were next to be shifted. Thus Mau-Mau, Minou, Tigrou, Squeaker, LBC, Freeman, Hardy and Willis were reunited in the house at St Paixent.

On the third day, a bad one from my point of view as there were some heavyweights still left to shift, I had a stroke of luck. Just as I reached the main road from the chemin, a friend drove past and asked if I needed a lift. A quick explanation followed and the request he waited a few minutes whilst I captured the others. He parked up by the Shed and Piglet, Splotch, QT, Kink, Arthur, Toxi and Beast left the Catbunker for the last time.

All they had to do was get on with each at the new house. That was optimistic, really optimistic... and has gone amazingly well. What has helped is having more space and many more rooms to use; there are three main groups: kitchen, lounge, and attic. A few circulate between all three, obvioulsy the kitchen is heaving at feeding time and the bedroom (aka the attic) is popular when my body heat is added to the mix. The only problems exist between Fatnip and Hissy, two big alphas, and Kink who refuses to play nice with anyone - including me. I received my third bite in three weeks after he went for my plate!

Watching their interactions makes me wonder if I change the "cast" of Shed II when it's finished. Fatnip and Gus have to stay inside because of their health problems. Demeter and Drusilla could go out as I'd be one hand to deal with Demi's dodgy eye. Hissy, Flatpak and Mau-Mau are seven years old and probably deserve to winter indoors. Ix will remain inside for the time being; he's far too small (and cute) for the Shed at the moment. What has also proved interesting is watching their pre-Shed characters return, the way they used to behave in the old avenue des Tilleuls house. Mau has found her voice again, Arthur his precocity; Hardy, unbelievably soppy at grande ru du Pont, feral in the Shed, is as drippy as a hippy again in St Paixent.

Maison Miaow is within a whisker of being declared a charitable association. I called in on our projected treasurer and lit a small fire under her, or rather, blew gently on the embers of the original small fire. She remarked that nine weeks holiday with three small children and a working husband had left her neither time nor energy for drawing up rules and regulations capable of satisfying even the broadest-minded bureaucrat, let alone French ones. She did promise to get going on the "régles". I did my best to help by visiting the Cat Club de Montmorillon and borrowing a copy of their guidelines.

Who knows, next month I might have that damn shed built...
Until then, I'd like to wish all of you all the best for 2010!

Tim Hurrell is an English expat living in the Poitou-Charentes region of Western France. He regularly pulls his underwear over his jeans* to rescue the local stray cat population, of which he has 29 in various stages of age and health. He continues despite poor judgement and worse luck - occasionally he's able to blame someone else. Plans to open to a boarding cattery to supplement the rescue work are temporarily on hold. He's writing a book, pressing on with the cats, and mutters darkly about not buying that micro-brewery when he had the chance. *think Superman's costume...