I lose count of how many cats Ben has…They all look very similar, either black or ginger…I think there are 4 (unless there’s only 1 black and 1 ginger, but I count them twice!). He’s very fond of them and often speaks about cats that he’s had in the past, and that he really misses one in particular - A tabby cat that came to an unfortunate end crossing the main road.

One week when I arrived at his house, he began excitedly waving a newspaper clipping in front of my face. He’d found some kittens for sale that were local to us that he liked the looks of. It looked like Ben had set his heart on embarking on our next project!

After checking with Bens dad and getting confirmation that we could proceed with this project, we called the number and eagerly awaited an answer. A very friendly lady answered the phone, but sadly we were too late – the kittens had been sold.

We sat down and spoke about our options. We’d been looking through ‘admags’ for weeks now as we’d been looking for musical instruments, and couldn’t remember seeing any kittens for sale. We considered the Derby Telegraph, and had a quick look through this, but again, no luck. I reminded Ben that we could head to the office and use the computers there to search. He didn’t seem keen.

I remembered that I’d seen someone on facebook advertising kittens for sale. I asked Ben if he’d heard of this and he shook his head. I explained that some people used it as a place to sell things, and some people sold animals. He told me to have a look.

I found the girl that had posted about the kittens, and messaged her. Ben watched me closely as I worked my phone, using my fingers to scroll up and down, left and right, zoom in and out of pictures.

Once I’d exhausted facebook for kitten options, we moved onto looking at websites. Ben indicated that he’d like to use my phone, so I let him. I was amazed at how quickly he’d picked up the finger motions to use, and praised him. He was managing to go from one page to the next, scrolling through the images and attempted to zoom in on kittens he liked the looks of (he struggled with this, we are working on it!).

Ben seemed to love this sense of independence, and only needed my help with zooming into pictures of kittens he liked. Other than that he was completely in his own little world, navigating his way through websites like an IT whizz!

When Ben is looking for something, he knows exactly what he wants. For this reason, this search for the perfect kitten went on for a few weeks! Each week his ability to navigate the technology on my phone improved, and I continuously praised him for being so quick at picking this up. It’s not easy!

The next time I saw Ben after the search for a perfect kitten, he had found them, and they were loving exploring his back garden with the other cats. Ben couldn’t wait to tell me the names he’d chosen for them and why – ‘Tiger’ looks like a little tiger, orange in colour with dark brown stripes, and ‘Twister’ is black and white in a ‘splodge’ sort of pattern.

Apparently the journey to get them was interesting – Ben and Philippa (another outreach mentor) had to travel a long way to get them, up a very steep hill… a hill so steep that her clutch burnt out and she had to call for break down cover! I’d say the cute little kittens were worth the journey though.

Me and Ben are looking forward to watching the little kittens grow up, as well as developing his new skill of using touch screen technology and the internet.

We are planning on using touch screen investigation to embark on our next adventure; I’ll keep you posted.
Speak to you soon!

Adele.