I have really been quite unkind nicknaming our beautiful, black cat Sumo.
His name actually came about some time after he found us. Yes, he was a stray and, if you have read my previous blogs you’ll know that I’m a sucker when it comes down to caring for strays.
Our house in Spain is not isolated, but it’s not on in a town or a village either. It’s not even on a main road. About a kilometre away from us there is a smallholding that used to be inhabited by a couple who, over time developed a real menagerie. They had dogs, cats, chickens, Vietnamese pot bellied pigs, a pony, peacocks, ducks and geese.
I think I am not being too speculative when I say they moved to the little log cabin with it’s large plot, to escape scrutiny (them being gay in a very traditional area). However, they just didn’t grasp that pets are part of your family and should not be discarded when you think you need a change. That is exactly what happened. The guys wanted more ‘fun’ and to see a bit more life. They rented an apartment, put the country property up for sale and sold the animals they could. What they couldn’t sell…they left. Cats, peacocks and a dog. The dog was taken on by a neighbour and the peacocks and cats were left to their own devices.
The cats obviously wandered in their search for food and they eventually found us. Four kittens and their mother were regular callers. The mother was actually beyond domestication and would have nothing to do with us. All of the kittens were very shy, however, one evening we came in from the garden and found one of them, a little black thing, in the kitchen eating Lewis and JB’s food. I have never seen anything eat so much or as quickly as he did. He wouldn’t let us near him but night after night, day after day he came back and ate as though he’d never seen food before. It was as if every meal was his last. My husband called him Blackie, just because he was black. When we sent pictures of him to our granddaughter, she called him Zagrios, however we didn’t think he looked quite as exotic as this name sounded so it was shortened to Zag but it didn’t stick. We also call him’Short Stuff’ on occasion because he is a very ‘squat’ cat with a low centre of gravity. However, it is his back legs and paws that made us settle on the name ‘Sumo’. They are permanently at ‘ten to two’ and as he walks with his belly low to the ground, he looks like an advancing sumo wrestler.
He eventually became a bit more friendly but typically chose his moments. ‘You will stroke me when I want you to’ sort of thing. When we could eventually pick him up, we took him to the vets and had him chipped, vaccinated, wormed, neutered and given anti tick treatment before eventually bringing him to the UK. He is quite happy being an urban cat. I think the temperature suits him better. I remember having to take Beccs, our other black cat (still missing) to the vets with heat stroke. The temperatures in Spain at this time of year can be really unbearable. From a human point of view, thank goodness for the swimming pool but that doesnt help the cat!
I should point out that I am aware that neutered cats have a tendency to put on weight. Blackie prefers dry food and we give him Iams with chicken/rice. We have tried every make going since he developed food fads but since we introduced him to Iams some months ago, he has been very happy with it. His coat is beautiful, his weight is steady although he is very solid and his breath doesn’t smell.
Does my bum look big or something?
JB on the other hand prefers wet food. He will only eat Sheba or Gourmet Perle meat varieties in jelly. He requires petting at every opportune moment and if you don’t comply with his wishes, he makes his displeasure known. He is the loudest cat we have ever had.
There is a story many years ago of an elementary teacher. Her name was Mrs. Thompson. And as she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie. She looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.
Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn’t play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant. It got tot he point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X’s and then putting a big “F” at the top of…
A sad week with the loss of Jules Bianchi to F1. His death from a brain injury so tragic not only because of his age, just 25 years old, but because of his potential. I’m sure that one day he would have enjoyed the success shared on Sunday by Vettel and Ferrari. It was a nice tribute by drivers standing in a circle around their helmets for a minute’s silence in respect of the man.
Bianchi, 25, died nine months after he suffered severe head injuries in a crash in last season’s Japanese Grand Prix when he left the track and hit a tractor that was recovering the car of fellow competitor Adrian Sutil.
The Marussia driver, who scored the first and so far only points in the team’s history when he finished ninth at last season’s Monaco Grand Prix, had been in a coma since the accident and never regained consciousness.
Bianchi was seen as one of the most talented young drivers in the sport, having been part of Ferrari’s young driver programme. He had been widely tipped to race for the famous team before tragedy struck.
No 17 has been retired in Jules’ memory.
The race was interesting. An over eager Lewis Hamilton who had dominated practice and taken pole position, made a poor start and some costly mistakes allowing a revitalised Vettel to take the lead and stay there for his second win for Ferrari. It hurts me to say that!
On a really bright note though, the incidents in the race favoured the Mc Laren boys and saw both of them come home in the points. Still not good enough by the teams performances in the past but definite signs of progress and hopefully better things to come. So, well done Jenson (and Alonso).
Well done also to Kvyat who came second in the Red Bull. He was chased hard by Riciardo (last years winner) but he had to make a late stop after a collision with Nico Rosberg and settle for 3rd place.Nico Hulkenberg failed to finish because of the spectacular collapse of his front wing which sent debris all over the track. The incident led to a safety car coming out and after the restart Hamilton had a collision with Riciardo which dropped him back to 12th. Testament to his driving skill that he got his head down and got back in the race to finish 6th. Rosberg had a puncture after a collision with Riciardo and had to make a stop which dropped him way down the field. He eventually finished eighth. So, bizarrely, Hamilton was able to extend his lead in the Driver’s Championship.
And how many penalties did Maldonado manage to accrue during the race? I lost count ha ha
How clean is your kitchen? If it looks clean, is that good enough? Whatever you do to clean in your kitchen, there are a few simple things that can help. Kitchens, like anywhere else are easier to keep clean if they are actually cleanable. Does that sound daft? It’s not really.
Firstly, it’s important to avoid clutter. A place for everything and everything in its place is a great goal to have. Don’t use worktops as storage areas if it can be avoided. If they are covered in equipment such as toasters, mixers, storage coontainers, kettles and coffee makers, the potential for contamination and the need for regular cleaning are increased.
Do you need to wipe down the surfaces with disinfectant? Well, that depends. Surfaces shuld be kept clean and free from dust and other contaminants. Wipe them down regularly with a cloth rinsed in hot soapy water. I have cats and I don’t know if at night they investigate my kitchen surfaces. The likelihood is that they do, so I use a hypochlorite solution (e.g. Milton or Domestos)to disinfect, or an antibacterial spray and wipe surfaces down before I prepare food in a morning.
Look, they’re clean!
Apparently, there are some ways to discourage your cats from getting up on to those kitchen worktops…they can’t walk on kitchen (tin foil), they can’t stand bubble wrap and they can’t stand the smell of oranges, so if you get an orange kitchen cleaner they won’t get up there ! If you’re really concerned about them jumping up there (and it’s only natural) try one of the above and let us know what happens.
The cloth that I use may be a disposable one but I don’t change it on a daily basis, rather at the end of the day I soak it in bleach for ten minutes, rinse and then leave to dry overnight. I dispose of it at the end of the week, or sooner if it becomes grossly contaminated or the fabric begins to deteriorate. If it’s a cotton cloth I treat it the same way on a daily basis but wash it in the machine once a week. Research has identified dish cloths as being harbours of potential pathogens but I like to take a common sense view when dealing with them.One thing you can be sure of, if your dish cloth begins to smell, the bacteria levels are…disturbing. Soak it in a bleach solution first, then wash in the machine and leave to dry (preferably on a line outside where the UV rays help to kill any bacteria left) or, throw it out and buy a new one!
Your sink in the kitchen is also a potential reservoir of infection, Sinks should be kept clean and free from limescale. Rinse debris away and then use a disposable coth and hot soapy water to remove grease. A descaler may be needed periodically to remove limescale but not bleach, this just takes colour out of the problem. Limescale presents a nice uneven surface in which germs can breed and it can’t be guaranteed that bleach gets in to all those little crevices, so don’t bother. Use a descaler, leave for the allotted time, rinse with hot soapy water, then dry. You should be left with a nice even surface that is cleanable
Germs…
…need warmth, moisture, food and time to reproduce (they may or may not require oxygen, and some do prefer a slightly acidic environment but not all) so if you remove one or more of those factors then they can’t.Drying is very important in breaking the chain of infection, not only in surface cleaning but handwashing also.Similar attention should be paid to taps and the drainer. Never put bleach down the sink , for all sorts of reasons.It won’t help unblock sinks, it won’t get rid of smells but it will interfere with the environmental bacteria down there which helps to keep unwanted organisms in low numbers and the drain smell free. If you have a septic tank, bleach should only be used in small amounts so as not to interfere with the bacteria levels necessary for breaking down organic waste.
More often than not, it’s not your kitchen you should be worried about but those of places where you and many others go to eat, drink, socialise. One of my biggest complaints is the failure of these big franchises to monitor hygiene standards in their establishments. I went for a coffee and snack with my sister the other day. It was to a coffee shop in Hull, near the Ice Arena. It was quite busy and we had to wait a while to be served because everyone seemed to be having food. I counted three staff on duty. Two serving and one clearing and cleaning. Coffee was prepared by ‘the Barista’ and food was served by another girl. Both took turns in taking money. Neither at any stage washed their hands. The Barista had a disposable cloth in front of the coffee machine which had obviously been in use for a while because it was covered in coffee grounds. Each time a coffee or other drink was made, coffee grounds, milk, foam, ice or syrup potentially were spilled in front of the coffee machine. I saw the surface wiped a couple of times with the same cloth which was then tucked under the coffee machine.I accept, there was no cleaning going on there, it was just physical removal of debris but the cloth should at least have been rinsed out and importantly, hands washed!
Now, I have mentioned how dirty dish cloths are. How do you think they compare to the money we have in our purses and pockets? Money is handled by potentially thousands of people without ever being laundered (well, not by being washed anyway).So, should people who handle money be handling food?
Some studies have involved swabbing the hands, currency and credit cards of people in various locations in the UK, and then testing for the presence of faecal bacteria (bacteria from the gut) which can cause nasty tummy upsets if ingested. As you might expect, the subjects’ hands were pretty disgusting, but also, some of the cards and the paper money had as much fecal bacteria on them as you would find in a dirty toilet bowl.No reason to believe that coins, with their uneven surfaces and in many cases, visible dirt, are any different.
So the message is Costa, Starbucks, Nero and others: If your staff prepare drinks and food and then take money, they MUST wash their hands before going on to the next customer. AND, perhaps you should take a leaf out of the NHS book and give them badges stating ‘it’s OK to ask’ so that we can make sure the hands that deliver us the sandwich, cake or coffee are clean by asking “have you washed your hands?”
Well, just returned from a little road trip to our Spanish pad and caught up with some news. At Wimbledon, Murray finally lost to Federer and Federer lost to Djokovic in the final. Serena won the ladies trophy and proved that she is almost definitely the greatest women’s singles player in the land but on the ocean, another world champ, one very lucky surfer, Mick Fanning made a great escape from the jaws, not of defeat, but from 2 Great White Sharks. Scary or what?
Jaws (dir S.Spielberg 1975) is one of my favourite films of all time. I remember seeing it along with a row full of family members and the moment when Ben Gardner’s head rolled across the hole in his sunken fishing boat made us jump out of our seats. SCARY! The Oscar winning theme by John Williams is unrivalled in being able to instil those feelings of dread and uncertainty. I remember holidaying with my sister in Southern Florida. We were down at the Keys and enjoying the sun on the beach when we decided to go for a swim in the sea. The water was so shallow we had to wade out for ages before we got to a decent depth for swimming. I don’t know which of us it was that said about shark attacks taking place in waist deep water or less but it prompted the dah da, dah da dah da dah da…we laughed but we must have been thinking the same thing. From treading water here in the ocean, how long would it take us to get back to the beach? Too long, let me tell you. We swam like hell but we still were potential shark fodder…MORE SCARY!!
Quint (Robert Shaw) was an eccentric character in the Jaws film. He could never be described as an ordinary guy. His history was that of a sailor whose experience aboard the USS Indianapolis (which was sunk by a Japanese submarine in the second world war, leaving him and 1100 of his fellow sailors stranded in shark infested waters for 5 days) had left him with a toughness to his character and a respect for sharks.
“Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you’re in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail fin. What we didn’t know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named “The Battle of Waterloo” and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and screamin’ and sometimes the shark will go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark… he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be living… until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and they… rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour… Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us… he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened… waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb”.
That scene, with the story telling and the scar comparisons and the singing ‘show me the way to go home’ was among the best in the film. Rumour has it that Robert Shaw asked if he could have a couple of drinks before the scene was shot, to help him get into character and deliver the lines in the way he envisaged they should be delivered. However, he went a little over the top and turned up so drunk he had to be carried off the set and the take had to be abandoned ’til the next day when sober, he gave a flawless delivery.
Other quotes from Jaws will remain as priceless snippets of movie history. Chief Brody on first seeing the shark …
“you’re gonna need a bigger boat”
This was the police officer who took the job on Amity Island although he hated water and didn’t go in it but whose view was,
“it’s only an island if you look at it from the water”.
Matt Hooper, the young oceanographer who was fascinated by sharks and hired by Chief Brody:
“what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that’s all”.
‘It’s what I do”
So, the story unfolds around the feeding spree that a giant rogue shark embarks upon around the island of Amity and the impact that it has upon individuals and the island has a whole. Quint, Brody and Hooper eventually track down the shark but before they can kill it, it kills poor Quint and eats half the Orca, Quint’s fishing boat.It is left up to Brody and Hooper to do the honours but the shark attacks Hooper in the cage that has been lowered into the water in an attempt to shoot and kill the fish with a poisoned dart. He is left for dead and Brody, teetering above the water’s edge on the ship’s mast is left to deal with the huge problem that is Jaws the Mechanical. He has thrust a gas tank into its mouth and after saying ‘smile you son of a bitch’, he shoots the tank, the fish explodes and it’s fish fingers all round.
The film has a happy ending or at least one that makes the best out of what has been a bad situation. The shark is killed, two of the heroes survive. Mike Fanning was lucky last weekend. He survived by getting in a couple of punches to the two sharks and fend off any further attack. Support was nearby and he was rescued from the water without injury.LUCKY
We don’t have a divine right to enter the water and expect to be safe from predators, particularly in places like South Africa which has an average of four unprovoked shark attacks per year, up to 75% of which have in the past proved fatal. Florida, Hawaii, The Caribbean, California, Australia and the French island of Reunion in the indian Ocean are all hotbeds for shark attacks where water sports and water leisure activities in the regions are indicated as risk factors. So if you do get into the water, particularly in any of these hot spots…dah da, dah da dah da dah da dah da, watch out.
Wikipedia describes a pet as ‘an animal kept primarily for a person’s company or protection’ as opposed to those used for sport, work, livestock or research. Stray cats are those which have been lost or abandoned and feral cats are domesticated cats that have returned to the wild. Pets are supposed to be creatures that we cherish and love and so I always find it amazing the number that are abandoned. Pregnant females and kittens are often discarded. They are not abandoned pets, they’re just animals that for one reason or another some selfish, cruel person decided they didn’t want any more. Particularly in hot countries such as Spain, any animal that is abandoned is at increased risk of dying because of the lack of water in the dry season. Other risks exist of course such as disease, threats from other animals, humans, traffic and starvation.
I want to tell you about Lewis and Jota Be, two kittens who were rescued after their mothers were abandoned. Two groups of kittens were taken to our friend at the market in Mollina and he agreed to try and find them homes. We spied the kittens as we visited the market, one beige and one tabby which was climbing the walls of the cage they were in. The beige kitten we were told, was five weeks old and the tabby four.Typically taken from their mothers too young and not properly weaned. I was only going to take one but couldn’t decide which, so took them both. It was amazing that they both sensed how much better off they were coming home with us. From day one they were both happy, loving cats and they loved to race around the house having their mad half hour, so we called them after racing drivers! The tabby was Lewis and the beige one Jota Be
JB and Lewis.
JB has lovely blue eyes but they often cross when he looks at you.
Despite being a week younger than JB, Lewis was always the brave one, the climber and the protector. He was an outdoor cat; the hunter. Often as he grew older he would find rabbit burrows where there were young and when they came out…wham! bam! he would pounce! Just as light was breaking we would hear screams and breakages and frantic running around the terrace outside our bedroom window. I would investigate and find ‘the sport’. Lewis would have caught a baby rabbit and scaled the six foot wire fence to bring it into the terrace where it couldn’t escape. Their cries are very distressing. I have saved many lives from torture and death by putting the rabbits back in their burrow. They may only have lived to last another day but I figure that was better than nothing.
Full up with one that didn’t get away!
We took the cats to England for a holiday. Lewis was everyone’s favourite. He loved to sit on my Mum’s knee and made for her as soon as she started knitting. It was, I guess similar to the scenario when you don’t like cats, they make a bee line for you; Lewis would see the knitting needles and must have known that he wasn’t wanted at that time but there was no way he was going to be denied.
He disappeared in Spain in 2014. He just didn’t come back home. He was neutered, so it was unusual. It was hunting season and so maybe he, like others fell prey to some trigger happy hunter who can’t tell a cat from a rabbit. I hope not. He was a pet and a much loved one.
I’ve just returned from a working holiday in Spain. I was actually working for myself doing some maintenance on our house near Archidona/Antequera in Malaga province. On the way there to pass some time I wrote some notes for my blog but never got round to posting them because our internet connection there is not too clever. Anyway, I had been watching tennis at the French Open and I was really rooting for Serena Williams in the final. I had watched a lot of tennis from the tournament and had become heartily sick of the squeaking, grunting, groaning and shouting by both men and women but most annoyingly, the women who seem to have taken the concept of the grunt to the nth degree.
Grunting (definition)
(of a person) make a low inarticulate sound, typically to express effort or indicate assent.
“the man cursed and grunted as he lassoed the steer”
I think the men demonstrate a more pure form of ‘the grunt’, it being low and a more obvious (to me) result of effort where the women tend to shriek or scream in a habitual sort of way. Monica Seles has been credited as being one of the first ‘grunters’ and many have followed, notably Francesca Schiavoni, Victoria Azarenka and of course Maria Sharapova.
I don’t know if there is an element of gamesmanship in ‘the grunt’ or if there is evidence in the coaching manual that suggests it is of value in some physical or psychological way. Certainly Martina Navratilova has been known to comment on her opponent’s grunting , suggesting that it interfered with her ability to hear the ball leaving the racket. I just know that I do not enjoy listening to a match that is dominated by shrieks and screams. Imagine Sharapova and Azarenka playing each other? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!
Dr Victor Thompson, who is a clinical sports psychologist states that grunting is more about the fact that breathing out hard and grunting when taking a shot, as if completing a bench press for example, helps to apply maximal force. Can’t argue with that I suppose but I refer you back to the original definition.
I suppose the argument that the grunt is now an acceptable part of modern tennis is that the game has changed and it is played at a faster pace and the balls are hit harder, hence added exertion. Well, Martina used to hit the ball pretty hard but I don’t recall her grunting too much.
Wimbledon 2015 is almost here. I have attended the tournament many times. My sister and I used to have a holiday for the first week of the tournament and go down to SW19, staying at the Trochee Hotel . We would be up and in the queue for tickets at 4am, always being quite near to the front and guaranteed tickets for the Show Courts. We had some great times sitting in the queue, meeting people from all over the world and sharing our love of tennis through great conversation. On more than one occasion we have procured tickets or entry into Wimbledon from our place in the queue, even at one time sharing a spot with some photographers after an AA man got us in for nothing. Saw the great Bjorn Borg that day. The emphasis is more on the public ballot nowadays. You can still queue but you have to be there for days rather than hours for a chance of success. They were great times and we saw all the tennis greats of the 70s 80s and 90s during our visits. We would have our routine for getting the most out of our day. Firstly, get tickets we wanted, second, hightail it to the Champagne and Pimms tent to partake of a little liquid refreshment, usually a couple of Pimms but sometimes Champagne. This would be followed by either an ‘Oscar’, which was a 12inch long hot dog or smoked salmon sandwiches and the inevitable strawberries and cream. I remember paying £5 for 5 strawberries but would have paid more because it was just part of our visit. Those were indeed happy days. We stopped going when it became apparent that in the future we would have to queue overnight (and miss the luxury of the Trochee Hotel) and that we would probably have to take out a mortgage to be able to finance a weeks trip. Our visits now are confined to the rare occasion we get tickets from the ballot.
So, Serena won the French Open but I’m not sure she’s playing well enough to win Wimbledon. Time will tell. Good luck to everyone who’s taking part and anyone who’s going, have a great time. Come on Andy!
I don’t want anyone to think that I don’t take care of my pets. I do. However, I do want to briefly tell the story of two beautiful cats who both disappeared in Spain. It seems this happens all too often.
When we first decided to spend more time in Spain, I bought a cat. This was as much for a practical reason as personal as we had had some issues with mice getting into our Spanish house, particularly in the winter time. So I wanted a handsome cat who would be an efficient ‘mouser’. I went to a local cat breeder and bought a lovely little kitten who was a cross between a Persian Blue and a Bengal, a ‘mistake’ according to the breeder but to me, exactly what I was looking for. We called him Beamish Eustace Cadwallader Catt or Beccs for short. He was typically playful, mischievous and loving (when he wanted to be) and a notorious paddler and dribbler. You definitely needed protection from the latter because you could end up wet through. He spent his first few months in England but once he had received all his vaccinations and been neutered, we took him to Spain. He was great on the journey there and walked proudly in a harness when we stopped for breaks, the only cat we have ever had that has done that. Mostly they just lay down and look at you as if to say ‘no way’!
Anyway, when we got to Spain there were ups and downs with Beccs. He was black and suffered in the heat and also we found him not to respond well to tick treatment. The vet said that it can affect a cat’s liver, so we had to go for a more holistic approach in a collar. He proved to be an excellent hunter, rabbits being his specialty but we never had any further problem with mice. This could have been as much to do with the new doors that we had fitted on the house but of course, Beccs did have an impact. He was also an excellent climber and loved the trees in our garden and also the olive groves that surrounded our property. He liked to wander and occasionally remained out for a whole night. On the occasion he didn’t come back after two nights we set off to look for him and over a number of days continued to search when he didn’t return. We informed the local vets just in case he was found and taken there but sadly, we have never seen him again.
It was always a worry to find that the Spanish do not like black cats and consider them unlucky. In fact our neighbour did not like Beccs and took great exception to him ‘doing his business’ in her plant pots. That always amused us because the whole area could have been one big toilet but he chose our neighbours tiny patio and her best geranium pots. I do not like to think of him ending up slung down a well but I would not put it past some people.
For a nation of supposed animal lovers there are a worrying number of dog, cat and donkey rescue facilities in Spain where stray animals end up. We have seen on more than one occasion animals abandoned at the side of the road, left to starve and eventually die often because of lack of water. I saw a man drive to the end of our road, dump two dogs that he encouraged to stay by leaving them two baguettes and then drive off. One dog turned up at our house who had obviously been abandoned probably because of the large tumour that it was supporting on its’ belly. It was beyond treatment but I fed it and gave it water before it wandered off to die somewhere. Horrible.
We often get hunting dogs in the season who have become separated from their owners. These can be a nuisance sometimes, particularly if they don’t have trackers on them as they just hang around for a while and eventually stray. Even the dog rescue centres don’t like taking them because they are expensive to feed and difficult to re-home.
Next, Horace went missing and then came Henry and Lewis.
Henry
Each Wednesday we used to go to a local market. I used to pick up pig’s ears for Horace and a few other bits and pieces. Often it was just a good chance to have a natter with fellow Brits and have a ‘menu del dia’ at a local restaurant. We were just walking into the market , past the dog rescue centre’s charity stall when I spied a strange looking man stood next to a cage which had four or five kittens in it. I was drawn to the cage and in it found some pathetic looking
Curious Henry…checking out my bottom drawer
In the pants Henry
On the bed Henry. Check out those markings and that beautiful tail.
Erm…these are potatoes! Where’s the meat?
creatures. The guy told us he had 34 cats at home and these were just some of the offspring. A little ginger kitten just stood out and eventually we agreed to take him home because we thought we could give him a much better chance of life. We called him Henry. He was in a pitiful state…underweight (he had worms) with sticky eyes , a runny nose and a cough.
Our first priority was a visit to the vets. Cats and dogs in Spain tend to be taken from their parents at 4 weeks and they are introduced to solid food very quickly. Henry was quite adept at sucking in tinned meat but he wasn’t getting the nourishment he needed. He also had a bad eye infection and a chest infection. The vet was not sure he would survive. I often wonder how anyone could keep so many cats or dogs and keep them all healthy. In this case it obviously hadn’t happened and the vet said all the animals would have the eye infection that was so serious in Henry. Fortunately, after antibiotic treatment and a better diet and lots of love and attention, Henry began to grow and develop the makings of a beautiful cat. His markings were quite striking and his tail the longest I’ve seen on a cat, with striking ginger and white hoops. He became great friends with Horace and they spent hours teasing each other, each giving as good as they got.
From the beginning it was obvious that Henry was going to be quite an efficient hunter. Rabbits were also his favourite but he would have a go at anything. He found a snake on the terrace once and enjoyed teasing it for quite some time. Who needed a mongoose…we had Henry. he was a bit of a night owl, going out last thing but he knew where we slept and when he wanted to come in he’d rattle those shutters until we let him through the window.
We got him chipped, vaccinated and his own Spanish passport and took him to England for a long holiday. Every one fell in love with him and his character and temperament. He would talk to you and tell you (in his own way) exactly what he wanted. Mostly, he was endearing and he just made you love him.
Eventually we decided we needed a proper vacation and arranged a holiday in Australia and New Zealand. We were going to be away for four weeks. Our friend agreed to look after Henry as he would be friends with her cat, Tilly. Oh how I wish we had sent him to a cattery. He may not have been as happy but at least he would still be here. Apparently he wanted to be outside so let him out. Did she hear him when he wanted to come in? Did he get lost? Did someone take exception to his noise?…he was very vocal when he wanted to be in, was he involved in an accident?. Whatever happened, Henry was never seen again and it spoiled my holiday when we received the call to tell us he had disappeared. We learned the hard way that our pets are better off in the security of a purpose built facility when we are away.
Vintage Dilbert
…need warmth, moisture, food and time to reproduce (they may or may not require oxygen, and some do prefer a slightly acidic environment but not all) so if you remove one or more of those factors then they can’t.Drying is very important in breaking the chain of infection, not only in surface cleaning but handwashing also.Similar attention should be paid to taps and the drainer. Never put bleach down the sink , for all sorts of reasons.It won’t help unblock sinks, it won’t get rid of smells but it will interfere with the environmental bacteria down there which helps to keep unwanted organisms in low numbers and the drain smell free. If you have a septic tank, bleach should only be used in small amounts so as not to interfere with the bacteria levels necessary for breaking down organic waste.
Full up with one that didn’t get away!
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