Update: with much perseverance we largely have balance restored, Withnail is at home in most of the house, although still sometimes legs it between the bedroom and kitchen like the floor is lava, but we're 80% there, thanks all for words of advice and support
Thank you! We will persevere with keeping him in for periods, preferably in the day when he'll be looking for somewhere to bed down, and let him out at night when he's most active.
We're not really wanting to make him an inside cat, he's been an outdoor cat most of his life, we primarily just want to make him feel that our house is his home, spend a bit more time here with us as he has done in the past. We kept him in for a couple days, so he slept here, and must now know...
Background: We acquired Withnail about 5 years ago when he was about 6 months old, he'd been a street cat for a bit, we got him through a cat rescue centre. We got Romana about 6 months later from the same centre, and they cohabited generally fairly well given the occasional scrap.
Romana died...
Just to introduce myself, my name's Chris, my wife Julie and I have shared our lives with cats for the last 5 years or so. I'm here because it's hard to get advice (particularly behavioural) from either vets or internet searches, and if ever I can offer anyone advice or experience in return...