One sunny day at the end of February, I spotted a young female cat in heat.

How did I know she was in heat?

Because there was a queue of male cats that had been summoned by her siren’s pheromonal song waiting to jump her. I grabbed my trap and joined the line, with a similar objective but quite a different end game in mind.

For her part, the little princess was clearly enjoying the attention. She would roll in the grass, eat the food I put down and swat away any suitor who tried his luck.

Look but don’t touch, boys. In this feline spin on the Disney classics, the princess holds the ball and decides when midnight strikes.

This ball however, was to be rudely interrupted by the door of the cat trap dropping into place and the princess being carted off to the vet. Princess Purrlicious would be spayed, vaccinated and returned to her outdoor territory as part of the community TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) program to reduce and help the feral cat population.

“Can we name this one ‘Norah’?” I asked my friend Selena, who had accompanied me to the veterinary clinic to help with both transport and translation. “It’s a traditional English name and ‘nora neko’ in Japanese means ‘stray cat’. So she’ll be ‘Norah the nora neko’! Geddit?”

People. I’m pretty sure she got it. And it says a lot for our friendship that her only question as she completed the clinic form was whether I wanted to spell ‘Norah’ with an ‘h’.

A few days later, we released Norah back to the area outside my apartment. Furious at this disrespectful treatment, the furry madam slashed at my hand as I tried to unhook the door of the cat carrier, before shooting off into the undergrowth.

Stray cats more than a few months old are generally not people friendly and socialisation is expected to be extremely difficult. The recommendation is therefore to let these moggies stay wild, but neuter and spay to minimise the number of cats born into such a harsh environment. I regularly put down cat kibble just outside my balcony for the cats I had TNR’d, who grudgingly returned for the food but kept their distance. Norah followed this pattern, and I would often see her in the trees around breakfast time, waiting for me to put down a fresh tray of food.

Then at the end of May, I opened the curtains and found her sitting on the balcony.

Hi. I am your cat. And I am waiting for my breakfast.

I blinked. And then dutifully returned to the kitchen to pour out a tray of kibble. Norah didn’t run when I opened the patio doors, but simply stepped back a few paces and waited for me to put the tray down.

In some surprise, I went back inside and found a churu cat treat. Slowly, I sat on the ledge of my patio doors and held out the plastic tube containing the pasty snack. And Norah came right up and ate it from my hands.

Over the next few months, Norah became steadily more comfortable around me. I put out a bed on the balcony and would find her curled up on its cushioned surface most mornings as she waited for me to appear. I started to be able to stroke her, initially when she was distracted by food before she warmed to the idea and started to request affection.

While I did spent time with her every morning, Norah’s domesticfication happened at a startling rate and did not follow a single YouTube or article I had read on the subject of stray cats. Milestones that had taken months of patience with Cassie were achieved in weeks or even days with Norah. It was as if she had woken up one day and decided, to hell with this. I am getting a home. And that person with the cat trap owes me.

I started a hashtag on twitter for #NorahNeko to go with #CassieCat.

Norah’s confidence also had an effect on the other neighbourhood strays, who began to venture onto the balcony, although none became as friendly as Norah. This had the advantage I could put food down on the balcony itself, rather than wedging a plastic tray under the balcony barrier where it would be occasionally carried away by a crow and dropped unceremoniously around the neighbourhood. (I wish I were exaggerating or making this up. I am not. One of my food trays is on top of the garage next door.)

Gradually, Norah began to explore inside the apartment. This did lead to one small set back when she spotted a cow plushie and reacted in a similar manner to Dorothy encountering a closet full of severed heads in “Return to Oz”. I perhaps didn’t help matters by laughing fit to burst.

And then there came the evening when she climbed onto the sofa with me and curled up in my arms. It had been so long since I’d had a real cat cuddle that I proceeded to over document the whole experience. Fortunately, Norah’s diva genes were unaffected by her drop in fertility and she appeared to agree the camera was entirely appropriate.

Not everything was smooth sailing. While Norah understood the purpose of the litter box (and I put down a second one for her use), she has opted to use a cushion once in the night, and on two other occasions… my bed.

Finding a cat peeing on you at 4am is …

… I’m going to leave that blank but feel free to insert choice words. Cat urine is INCREDIBLY stinky and the coin laundry (with machines large enough to take a duvet) doesn’t open until 6am.

The thinker. Unfortunately, not on the subject of litter boxes.

Given the timing and the fact I had seen Norah use a litter box, I suspect this is a stress reaction from staying inside an apartment all night. I added an extra litter box just in case. My apartment is currently full of litter boxes, which is a reflection on how little I enjoyed the visits to the coin laundry.

I would like to bring Norah into the apartment permanently, not least because it otherwise presents a problem with her care when (heaven forbid) I’m finally able to travel again. I’m hoping her comfort will steadily increase, guided by the colder weather!

However, the biggest surprise in this series of events was not Norah’s demands to remove her nora-cat status, but the effect she had on Cassie. It was this, if nothing else, that made me resign myself to the fact I have two cats. (This is a cliff hanger for the next post. Feel free to feel mildly frustrated.)