Cats in the Belfry - Tapa blanda

First published in the 1950s, this is an account of the domination of the author's household by a family of Siamese cats. Doreen Tovey and her husband bought Sugieh, their first Siamese kitten, to deal with an invasion of mice - but not ordinary mice. None of the animals in the book could be called ordinary - from Grandma's tame owl, Gladstone, whose insistence on sitting on top of the bathroom door nearly froze the family to death in winter, to Blondin the squirrel, who chewed through a watch to find the tick and, when he was sent to stay with Aunt Louisa, insisted on sleeping, nuts and all, in her bed. But none was so quite out-of-the-ordinary as Sugieh. And when she had kittens, following an hilarious courtship and marriage, life just became more riotous than ever. After her tragic death, her offspring Solomon and Sheba stayed on in charge of the Tovey household, doggedly determined to keep the Siamese flag flying.