A fox, a goose and a sack of corn … the question

Well …. not exactly … but this is the riddle this week has reminded us of: http://riddleshub.com/fox-goose-corn/ for those of you who don’t know it.

rather too many cats

After four years of rescue cats and kits trashing the carpets in their rooms we decided to arrange to have some laminate flooring laid in those two rooms.   When we ordered the laminate. things were busy bit not overly so.  Between booking it all, Domino and then Eddie & Dizzie arrived.  With a house full, 3 additional cats might not sound much, but Dom needs to be separate from all of them, and Ed n Dizz need their own space together too.

So here we are with 18 cats in the house, in 4 separate groups who need to not mix.   There’s 5 rooms in the house if you include the conservatory which is liable to extremes of temperature and a tiny bathroom which doesn’t have room to swing even the smallest kitten – you’ll need to trust me that this is worked out by mathematical hypothesis rather than practical demonstration.

With me so far?  The joiner needs access to both cat rooms one of which contains Ed and Dizz, the other with Tilly, her 6 kittens and the remaining 3 little Fs.   The 5 permanent residents need access to the cat flap/outdoors, Ed needs to not leave his unneutered tom cat scent in my bedroom, the lounge or the dining room which are the main rooms the residents hang out in, Honey and Jango must not be stuck in a room together as they hate each other, rescue cats must not be a) in any room the joiner needs access to or b) any room with an outside door/cat flap opening on to it, Domino mustn’t share with anyone because she hates them all, but particularly not with Ed who hasn’t yet been neutered because we don’t know if Dom has been spayed or not.  Jango mustn’t be able to get anywhere near the joiner as he cornered the poor guy on the landing last time he did some work on the house and its not been forgotten.   Ideally whilst we’re out at work the joiner needs to be able to use the bathroom and kitchen to make a drink if he needs to without fear of being attacked, or having escapees.

Oh … and there needs to be no furniture on the floor in either of the rooms which the laminate needs to go down in.

You have a few sleepless nights to figure it out … starting now!