On feline emigration

I had two cats. Shallot, loveable, cuddly, and friendly and Turvy, smelly, old and a real bloke of a cat. The concensus was that we could keep Shallot when we moved here, and so plans were made with regards to moving him. The morning of the big move arrived, and having starved him since the night before, he fell for my cunning plan oftempting him with a pouch of tasty catfood. Grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and in one swift move I had popped him into the cat box and closed it shut. I knew he'd be slightly uncomfortable, so I'd included a towel to sleep on. Yes, I was still starving him, but there was a damn good reason for this. If he ate, he'd need to pee, or God forbid, poo. Starving him meant that he would wait until he got here.
We moved him to the car, and once we were on the road the usual "Meow" and "Meeeeeew" noises were eminating from my not unsubstantial boot. Suzie was sat in the back seat, and after a couple of minutes where poor Shallot must have thought he was being transported to a slaughterhouse and blind panic set in, he was attacking anything next to the cat box. This included TDT's Mum's quilt, which he was more than happy to sink his previously sharpened claws into. Suzie had the unenviable task of shuffling things around to settle him down, and popping my jacket over the top of the cat box seemed to have the desired affect. In true "canary style" the darkness had obviously told him it was night time, and he would go to sleep. That's what we thought.
*shuffle* *shuffle*
"Mew."
*shuffle* *scratch*
"Mew."
*shuffle* *push*
"Mew."
*POP!*
A head appeared above the back seat. Suzie screamed, Tania screamed, I swore, Shallot exclaimed "result!" The little fucker darling had broken the front door of the cat box clean off. If you've ever seen my cat box, it has a front plastic grill that makes up the door, and is held in place by 4 plastic lugs with swivel catches to hold it shut. Or rather it did. he'd managed in his blind panic to punch the door in something akin to a horse kick, and broken all four lugs clean off. The tarpaulin had also come adrift on the back of the trailer and I needed to do my tyre and fuel anyway, so we were due to stop after a couple of miles. This was the longest 5 miles, as Shallot climbed onto my lap and watched with glee as the world whizzed by. Pulling up I grabbed hold of him and shoved him back into the box. A battle of wills as he tried to get out followed, mostly involving him sticking a claw up and me smacking it. I grabbed the well and truly buggered door and duck taped it to the front of the box. If he wanted to see for the rest of the journey, tough. I went to town with an entire roll of duck tape, sealing the box shut. Even Tiddles, houdini's cat, wouldn't have escaped from that. He continued to scream all the way to Pembroke Dock (those that have been to Pembroke will know that feeling), and with a sense of guilt we left him in the boot of the car whilst we went for 4 hours of bars, food and much relaxation. One thing you can be sure of was he screamed his heart out for most of those 4 hours. We returned to the car and checked on him.
"Shallot."
*nothing*
"Shallot?"
"mew"
He was still alive. The journey across Ireland was punctuated with the occasional cry of "Please God let this nightmare stop" eminating from his plastic and duck tape prison, normally signified by a "Mew." We'd tried to get some cat litter en route, and failed miserably, so when we got here just after 11:30 in the evening, my main priority was to get him a litter tray and to put some earth in it.
The next morning and he had a prowl around the house. He took a wee against TDT's handbag, then had a really hard poo in the lounge, followed by a really messy squit, again against TDT's bag. Then another squit at the bottom of the stairs, followed by a really big squit at the top of the stairs. I caught him mid-squit, his eyes crossed as he relieved himself with much pressure. I dragged him back downstairs and locked him in the kitchen, now with real kitty litter. He wasn't impressed.
He's now spent a week and a half being relegated to the kitchen most of the time. We let him out and he curls up on the settee, just happy to have company again. He's sat on windowsills looking out, and I'm sure last night he let himself out of the kitchen window because we couldn't find him for over an hour, and then a crash in the kitchen and I found him on the windowsill, looking like he'd just come back in. He's curled up behind me as I type this. He follows me around like a shadow, like he's worried I'm going to go again. TDT doesn't like the smell, but it is only eminating from the litter tray, and in time he'll be going out instead so we know the smell will go away. And in the meantime he's adorable.
Sometimes he sits there looking at us as if to say "God I love you," and even TDT's cat hating stone cold heart melts.