Another missing cat in November :-(

Over sixteen years ago we acquired Cleo, who was a small and feisty kitten. Evidently she was a little older than we thought, because six months later - at the end of February 1999 - she gave birth to three kittens.

One of them only lived about six weeks; he became ill and the vet could not help. We were so upset at losing him that we decided to keep the other two.

Sophia was the intelligent one - hence her name - who quickly learned our schedules and bossed us all around. Jemima wasn't quite so bright, and she waddled like a 'puddleduck'. Hence her name.

Our feline family was completed, for a while, nearly two years later when Tessie walked into our house and our lives.

Not that Cleo's family never entirely accepted her.

In November of 2007, Jemima vanished. She was a quiet cat who avoided other people but liked to sleep outdoors at night. One neighbour said that, sometimes, nice cats were stolen to be sold. It seemed a strange theory, but better than any alternative. I was her special human and I missed her enormously; but by that stage, Daniel had left home. He was Sophia's special human, and she gradually transferred her affections to me.

Tim was Tessie's special person; he was looking after the house for us in November last year, when Tessie vanished in a similar manner. One day she was around, as usual; the next she was not. He hunted around the neighbourhood but there was no sign. She was thirteen at the time; not old, but she'd had a few strange episodes of hiding away, with unknown sickness. We never did find her.

So we were down to two increasingly elderly cats. Which is why, when we had the opportunity to adopt two kittens in the summer, we did so.

Thankfully the older cats accepted them well.

Cleo developed arthritis over the past year, and one of her legs became swollen. Around May or June she turned sixteen, which is equivalent to 96 in human years. She could no longer jump much, but she was still eating and washing happily, and purring as she snuggled into us at night.

Here she is, getting comfortable on a cushion about a month ago:

Sophia developed a slight lump on her right eyelid, and we were concerned enough that a visiting friend who has worked as a veterinary nurse took a look; he said it was a hematoma, probably caused by high blood pressure. As it caused her no distress he recommended ignoring it, unless it grew big enough to obstruct her vision.

It actually got smaller.. here she is, earlier this week, looking regal on the beanbag:

We were - at least in theory - prepared for the fact that Cleo might one day wander out of the house, and find a peaceful secluded spot, and fade away. It's what happened to our first cat, Toby, back in 1992. 

What we did not expect was that Sophia would vanish. Out of the blue, two days ago. Just like Jemima and Tessie did, except that it was in broad daylight. Sophia, who was an extremely vocal cat, would have let the entire neighbourhood know if she had got shut in somewhere, or if anybody tried to catnap her. 

It took me a couple of hours to notice that she'd gone out and not come in again; she used to ask to go in and out of my study door rather than using the cat flap, but she would often sleep outside in the sunshine. I was surprised when I went to water plants, and she did not appear to tell me off for wasting water. But I thought that perhaps she had come back into the house via the cat flap after all, and that I would find her inside somewhere, peacefully asleep.

I could not locate her anywhere.

I walked around the neighbourhood, afraid that she might have been run over, but there was no sign. I called for her, and listened.. but there was no distinctive Sophia mew. 

I became increasingly concerned.. and she did not come back. 

A friend mentioned that he had seen her scavenging in a dustbin a few days earlier; perhaps, he theorised, she ate something that's toxic for cats. I then started to wonder if her blood pressure was getting higher and she suffered a stroke. I tried to recall whether she had been behaving differently in recent weeks, and all I could think of was that she had been more peaceable, less bossy. 

Two days later there is still no sign - or sound - of Sophia, and I've given up searching. If by chance she got taken somewhere else, perhaps in the back of a truck, then it's just possible she might find her way home. But she was an old cat - she would have turned 16 in a few months. I had hoped she might have lived a few years longer as she seemed to be in such good health - but apparently not. 

I miss her, so much. 

It never occurred to me that Cleo would be the last remaining of our original four.

Jemima is still missing - in Larnaka?

It's now a week since we realised that Jemima, the third of our four cats, was missing. I know I saw her on Saturday night, last week. She sat outside the guest flat on a windowsill while I made up a bed there. She was in good health, as far as we know, and being friendly, curious to see what I was doing.

I don't remember if she came in that night. Of all the cats, she's the one who was most likely to stay out at night. I would find her outside my study door in the morning, and she would then come in, have a bite to eat, and sleep on one of the comfortable chairs for most of the morning. However she would sometimes sleep in Tim's room overnight, or on a sofa. Sunday mornings tend to be rushed, and I simply can't recall whether or not I saw her in the morning last week.

We noticed her absence at lunch-time last Sunday, but didn't think much of it. It wasn't until the evening that I became anxious, realising that I hadn't seen her all afternoon. We went outside and called for her, opened all cupboards and balconies and other places she might have got shut in, wandered around the neighbourhood to see if we could hear her calling to be let out of some shed... but nothing.

In some parts of Cyprus, even of Larnaka, cats get poisoned. But in our street there are several cats and dogs. People here seem to like animals - it's one of the many things that drew us to this neighbourhood. We did wonder if Jemima had got run over - but she's always been very nervous of cars, and we haven't seen a run-over cat around here. Any of the neighbours would have told us if they'd found her. We stand out as the only Brits in the street, and our cats are all black or tortoiseshell, unlike the other local ones which are mostly ginger, tabby or white.

We wondered if she was accidentally shut in some building project that was closed on Sunday. We really thought she would appear on Monday - but she didn't.

On Wednesday, in a patch of waste ground not far away, I caught site of a black tail hiding beneath a large fig tree. It's owner hid right in the middle of a thicket as I approached. Perhaps, I thought, Jemima was hurt, or sick, and thus hiding from everyone, even us. But subsequent searching didn't reveal her. It was probably another cat.

We wondered if she had decided to visit our old home, and been shocked that it's now flattened. I'm not sure why she would do that eighteen months after moving, but we were grasping at straws. Cats can apparently find their way 'home' from long distances, and we're only about 2km from where we used to live. Tim went and looked around the site, but there was no sign. Besides, we have friends in that road who would let us know if she did appear.

Yesterday our neighbours over the street here, who have several cats, said that one of theirs went missing around the same time. They think it was stolen. Not for nefarious purposes - there are many stray cats around restaurants and beaches, after all, which could easily be bribed by food to be captured - but because they are 'nice' cats. It seems bizarre to me that a cat-lover would steal a much-loved cat from its home, but then again, cats here don't generally wear collars, and if they were out at night, potential cat-kidnappers might have assumed they were homeless strays. Or possibly abandoned family cats.

It seems unlikely, since Jemima is a private sort of cat who never goes to strangers. But it's the best of the possibilities I can think of. I just hope she isn't shut away somewhere, or suffering in any way. I miss her.

She's not even particularly photogenic, and I didn't take many photos of her this year, but here are a few - just in case anyone in Larnaka happens to catch sight of her.

Here she is on our bed in the early springtime, enjoying a snooze and wishing I would go away with that horrible flash on the camera:


Here she is in April, on the patio of our guest flat, looking at some new plants we had bought:


Here she is in the early summer, apparently writing some email at my computer:


Here she is, again in the summer, deciding that the cabinet with printer paper was a good place to sit:


And here's the most recent photo I took of her, just a month ago, on one of our comfortable sitting room chairs. Remarkably unflattering:

Looking back on most of November in Cyprus

It's now just over a month since we returned to Cyprus after our trip to Hong Kong and Malaysia. It feels like considerably longer.

About a week ago days ago, I made myself a list of things I wanted to complete by the end of November. There were around 35 items on the list, so I reckoned if I did four per day I would complete them all. Some of them were quick things which I knew I would do (such as paying various bills), and others a bit longer, but lists generally help me stay motivated. Or at least remind me of what needs to be done.

So far I have crossed off twelve items from the original list. I've also added in a further twelve, of which I have crossed off four. We're going to do a couple more this evening.

Evidently I'm not going to get anywhere near completing the list by the end of the month, but at least I know I've done several useful jobs that needed to be done.

In addition, I've been updating my book reviews blog with links to Amazon (both UK and USA) - partly in the vague hope that someone might order through them, giving me commission, but also because I think they look better with photos of the book covers.

Oh, and I've been sent three updates for Daniel's Doulos blog which I've now posted, along with photos. One of them ('How to make a rope ladder') was remarkably difficult to do, as he didn't tell me where any of the photos should go, and I didn't understand much of the jargon. Nor did I know what most of the photos were. Richard edited it and moved the photos to better places, but we're still not sure it's entirely correct. Daniel can blog from the Doulos himself, but the connection isn't very good and he can't upload photos easily. So he emails them to me. Usually he tells me where he wants them to go in his post, which makes life much easier.

Oh, and - so far - I've also managed to post at least one entry in this blog every day this month, which is the aim of 'National Blog Posting Month' (or NaBloPoMo).

Jemima still hasn't come back. It's strange how much I miss her; she was quiet, and peaceful, and didn't make her presence felt anything like as much as the other three do. I'm still hoping that she will reappear, but it's three days now.

First Christmas card in Larnaka (for us, anyway) and a missing cat

Today, the first Christmas card arrived.

I suppose it IS now less than a month until Christmas. I was beginning to think I should start writing cards, and typing up a newsletter, so as to send them out in the first week of December. But to receive a card today (and it was in our PO Box, so it could have been waiting there for a few days) someone must have been remarkably efficient.

On another subject, one of our cats has vanished. Jemima disappeared for three days once before - back in June 2005. She returned, but one of her legs was very strange for a week or so. Then she seemed to recover, and has been fine ever since.

I know I saw her on Saturday night, when I was making up a bed in the guest flat. I can't remember if I saw her on Sunday morning. When I get up, I usually let one cat out, and one cat in, and feed another.... with four of them, I don't always notice whether or not they're all around. Besides, Jemima sometimes does sleep most of the morning.

But when she didn't appear at lunch-time, I was surprised. By evening, I was getting concerned. Richard went around the neighbourhood looking for her, but to no avail.

We hoped she had got temporarily shut in somewhere, and would re-appear this morning, but she didn't. We just hope she hasn't injured her leg again, or worse...

Cats in character

When we were downstairs last night, painting and hemming curtains, the four cats were a little puzzled since there's usually at least one of us in the main part of the house.

True to type, Sophia - the organised Extravert - followed us downstairs, walked around telling us we were doing everything wrong, and then decided to have a nap (she is, after all, feline..) on the most comfortable sofa:


Tessie, who also loves to be around people, and is a secret admirer of Sophia, came down too. She sniffed around a bit, then, seeing Sophia taking a nap, did likewise, on a not-so-comfortable chair:


Cleo, most nervous and unpredictable of our cats, sat upstairs for a while, since that's where she feels safest. But she only dozed lightly, and spent some time checking whether we were in fact hiding from her:


Then eventually she came downstairs too, to find out what was going on, and to ensure there were no intruders.

As for Jemima, softest and shyest of all the cats... she just found a comfortable chair in our main living room, and had a good wash:

The cool of the evening

I'm thankful for many things in this new house. But one thing that stands out above all the rest is the way that the cats adjusted so quickly and easily. You would think they had always lived here. They've sorted out their own routines, they're confident moving around the neighbourhood, they don't seem bothered by the dogs in the street, and they haven't shown the slightest indication to return to the old house.

Their essential characters remain the same, of course. Cleo still looks around nervously at any unexpected noise, and loves to sleep in quiet corners, particularly cardboard boxes. Sophia is still very talkative and likes to ensure we do things at the same times each day. Jemima still likes to be out at night, and sleep all morning, and is very cuddly to me, while mostly ignoring anyone else. Tessie still greets everyone who comes into the house and likes to sit on as many laps as possible.

But a new habit is that of sitting outside on the steps in the evening around 8pm, as the temperatures cool slightly. This is the time when many Cypriots have their evening meal, so perhaps there are tempting scents on the breeze. But the cats simply sit and watch the world go by. Usually it's just one or two of them, but yesterday I caught three of them all at the same time:


Sophia is at the top, her twin Jemima is just below, and Tessie is the one at the front of the picture.

Cleo was fast asleep in a cardboard box at the time. Which is preferable to her choice of steps: she prefers to be camouflaged wherever possible, and likes to sleep on one of the black metal spiral steps at the other side of the house. Which is fine, until someone is going up or down and she lies there, refusing to move...

Slowly getting sorted

Oddly enough, despite full air conditioning in this house, we're hardly using it. The weather's fairly hot - 30-32C in the shade outside [that's about 86-90F] but since none of the house faces South, and it's high enough to catch some breezes, it doesn't feel unpleasant at all during most of the day. The ceiling fans we bought from friends make a big difference in circulating the air, and the only time we're really using the a/c is overnight, when it's quite humid. So nice to sleep without feeling hot and sticky.

However, my computer has crashed twice in the past two days, for no obvious reason. It's not a computer which crashes, so I'm wondering if it's due to the heat. A good excuse to run the a/c in my study, anyway, to see if it makes a difference.

Last night Tim had some friends over to watch the DVD of the first Narnia movie, which one of his friends recently acquired. Several of his friends are leaving the country soon - some are away at college and are just back for the summer, one is going on a course in Scotland for six months, some are leaving Cyprus to return to their home country. So although we still have a long way to go in unpacking, he invited them for yesterday and I think they had a good time. Only problem being that they all arrived late - quarter to nine rather than eight o'clock - and since we don't yet have any rugs or curtains, the living room is very echoey. By 10.30 I wanted to get to sleep, but the louder parts of the movie were disturbing; after it had finished, they chatted for a while and had some cake, and although I don't suppose they were particularly noisy, I couldn't sleep. Our plan is to have a TV and DVD player for the guest flat, so Tim can have friends down there as late as they want, so long as nobody's staying. After last night we realised that's definitely a good idea!

The cats all seem to be contented in the new house, showing no inclination to run away. So far we've managed to keep them all in overnight, and they don't mind much. They've started exploring neighbouring yards; Jemima and Cleo went for a short tour of the local garage roofs this morning, but they all return. I can't say I like cleaning cat litter every few hours, or having to sweep the entire house every morning due to the accumulation of cat hairs, but it still has novelty value. Besides which, we're thankful that the cats have adjusted so well.

We're now using our dining room, which we cleared a couple of days ago after beginning to sort books. This was how it looked on Sunday:


If you think that looks surprisingly organised for a few days after moving, here's what it looks like when I turn about 45 degrees towards the kitchen!


Here's how we get into the main part of the house, and the reason my calves were aching for a couple of days after we got access to paint:


And here's Tessie, part way down the outside stairs, considering whether to explore across the car-port:

Moving day itself - Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, early, I packed the rest of my study. I started on the kitchen but it was too overwhelming. I was really tired and feeling very stressed too.

Our first helpers arrived at 8am. Richard had organised the start of the day well, with three open pickup trucks, the Antidote truck - which is rather bigger - and about 9 students, five guys and four girls, who were going to do the actual moving. The idea was to have half the people at each house, so some would be loading while others would be unloading, and the pickup trucks would drive to and fro.

To complicate matters, a large quantity of boxes we had been storing in our garage for the last eighteen months (for someone from our church who returned to the USA) were being collected by a professional shipping company the same morning.

We started with the heaviest items in the Antidote truck - the piano, which is going downstairs, and our fridge-freezer (for upstairs) and washing machine (for downstairs). Then a steady stream of other furniture and the packed boxes.

It was very tiring, and by mid-morning pretty hot too. I stayed at the old house to ensure that we only moved the items we wanted (we're leaving a few sofas, and there were one or two things belonging to our landlady) and Richard directed operations at the new house. Amazingly, all the heavy stuff was moved shortly after noon, and although the old house looked as if a bomb had hit it, we decided it was better to leave it there. So we all went to the new house, had coldish drinks (the fridge had only been on for an hour or so) and ordered pizza. We were very, very thankful for our assistants - about 18 in all.

And the cats?

Sophia complained a lot, most of the morning, then went to sleep in her favourite basket. Jemima kept out of the way. Tessie watched everything, crying a little. Cleo - the most nervous one - to our surprise kept climbing on or in boxes, being as involved as possible.

At 11am I had to go and rescue Tessie who had climbed into a bookcase on the back of one of the pickup trucks. She was very distressed. Tessie is our fourth cat, the one who had evidently been abandoned by a family with children when she was just a few months old. It occurred to me that perhaps this family moved house and left her behind... which would explain her huge distress, seeing us moving. So I phoned Richard (on someone else's mobile - I don't have one) and he came back, got Tessie in the cat basket, and took her to the new house. He said she cried all the way, but when she saw Tim she was very happy and purred loudly. Tim shut her in his room with food and a litter tray, and she was fine.

After that success, Tim returned in the next truck, with the cat basket, and we tried to get Jemima inside. The first time she struggled and escaped. We caught her again, and shut her in the basket. She started crying, and somehow managed to burst out before they got in the car. Then she vanished.

So the driver of the truck suggested Tim take another cat on his lap, rather than using the basket. Tim took hold of Sophia, and succeeded despite a few scratches along the way. He shut her in Daniel's room.

By the time we were going for lunch at the new house, Cleo had vanished entirely and Jemima was sleeping on the patio, but running away any time she saw me. Clearly I had betrayed her trust. We decided to leave them for a few hours.

We also decided, during lunch, to let Sophia and Tessie out of their rooms. So we closed all the windows and turned on the air conditioning. We were surprised to find that neither of them wanted to come downstairs to the main floor at all... having lived in a bungalow, they had only experienced a few concrete steps outside, and the slippery marble ones in the new house clearly defeated them.

After the helpers left, Sophia did venture slowly down the stairs, with much persuasion, but Tessie wouldn't even try them until much later in the afternoon.

About three o'clock we went back to the old house, and found both Cleo and Jemima inside. Since Cleo likes cardboard boxes so much, Richard put her in one with a few airholes, then taped the top. Tim said he would carry Jemima rather than subject her to the basket again. And we got them both to the new house and up the stairs, thinking they would both stay up there for a while. They surprised us... Cleo ran straight down, as if she had been using marble stairs all her life, then up again, then down again. Jemima was a little more careful, but managed them without problem. However they both refused to talk to us at all, and kept hiding behind boxes or under sofas. By that stage, Sophia was purring and washing, and Tessie following us around the house, so we thought perhaps it took awhile to adjust.

In the evening Tim had music rehearsals at church, and Richard and I were asked out to eat with some friends. We realised we hadn't collected a few essential items like toothbrushes from the old house, so we returned there to find what we needed, then back to the new house where we still had to assemble our bed! This is the pine bed we had as a wedding present 26 years ago, which was in the UK until last October, and has been sitting wrapped up in pieces until yesterday. Thankfully all the pieces were there, and Richard remembered how to do it.

Cleo had evidently decided to forgive us, and started following us around the house wanting lots of cuddles. Jemima continued to hide behind boxes, looking very sad.

Finally, by 10pm,we fell asleep in our new house.

Sophia and Jemima having a chat...

When they're walking they don't look alike at all, despite being twins. Sophia is a sleek and elegant short-haired tortoishell , and generally moves fast. Jemima is fluffy, gentle, has much darker longer fur, and has a tendency to waddle. (She was named after Mrs Puddleduck).

But looking at them sharing the study window-sill earlier, I could see the resemblance.

Boxed freight and books

Just for the record, this is what our 'Atrium' looked like after we (and a friend) had unloaded the 49 boxes after the freight arrived. The cats were keen to investigate: Tessie quickly managed to find the highest box so she could survey the scene thoroughly.


We didn't unpack everything. But we did get out the dining table, the four bookcases, all the books, some pots and pans and a few other items. Oh, and about nine warm jumpers (sweaters) belonging to Richard. I spent several hours cataloguing all our books on the computer, having moved around the old bookcases and rearranged the order. Our cats have always liked sitting on top of the rattan bookcases; Sophia and Jemima seemed even more pleased to find that (now we've moved them closer together) they could sit next to each other on top of bookcases.



And yes, the Atrium is now clear of boxes. What we didn't unpack is either on top of the fitted wardrobes in our bedroom, or packed away in the tiny loft space above the bathroom.

Cats

Somehow we've managed to catch nice photos of all four of our cats in the last couple of weeks.

Here's Cleo, our oldest and most nervous cat. She's seven now, but still as anxious as she was as a kitten. On bonfire night she hid inside Dan's sofa when fireworks started nearby. But here she is sitting out in the sunshine - alert, as ever. Probably she heard a leaf falling somewhere...


Sophia is Cleo's daughter, six-and-a-half years old now. She's highly intelligent, even for a cat, and belongs almost exclusively to Daniel. Or rather, he belongs to her. Here she is having found a very comfortable pillow on his bed:


Jemima is Sophia's twin. She's fluffy, conflict-avoidant, and considers me to be her human. She often sleeps till lunch-time, but here she is sitting outside late one morning:



Last comes Tessie, who is five years old. She is very friendly to people, and unfriendly to other cats. Mostly she tolerates our others, though she has spitting matche with Sophia sometimes. But she fights viciously against any other cats who dare to wander into our garden. Here she is nearly asleep (or perhaps trying to avoid the camera) on a sofa:


We're all 'cat people'. It makes life easier when a whole family is that way. We all quite like dogs too, but much prefer having cats in the home. When Cleo arrived it would never have occurred to us to have more than one cat at a time, but it's very enjoyable having four as they have such distinct characters.

Tessie

I've blogged already about three of our cats: Cleo and her daughters Sophia and Jemima (now quite recovered). But it's the fourth who's been giving us the most concern recently. Tessie is not related to the others. She arrived on our doorstep in December 1999, shortly after Richard had declared that we were NOT having more than three cats! The others accepted her somewhat, but don't really like her, even now. She was small, fluffy, very friendly, and clearly a family cat. She even liked small children so we thought someone must have lost her. But we never did manage to find her home. Perhaps she was abandoned.

Her name, incidentally, is really Tessa. And that's an abbreviation: not of Teresa, but of Tessera. Anyone who speaks Greek can probably guess why we gave her that name after it had become clear that she was staying, in the absence of any better ideas.

We worry about her because in the summer she turns into a fighting cat. When she was less than a year old, she managed to get all the local feral cats out of our garden - they were clearly terrified of her. She's like a Jekyll and Hyde character, depending on whether she's with humans or cats. Oddly enough she didn't object to the kittens we fostered for a while, perhaps because they were small and dependent.

In the past couple of years she seems to have decided to expand her territory. Perhaps she started reading the Prayer of Jabez book (about which I have many reservations, but that's another issue). We've actually seen her locked in combat with far bigger cats, and usually winning. But inevitably she arrives home with injuries, some of them looking quite painful. This year she's lost a lot of fur around her throat. It looks very sore but is not bleeding, and she keeps it clean, so we're assuming it's healing naturally. I dread to think what the other cat looked like after the fight...

Still, a big battle with scars seems to be the trigger that stops her fighting for a while. For the last few days she's mostly been inside, arriving on whoever's lap is the last to arrive in any room and wanting a lot of attention. She likes sitting in strange places - yesterday I found her on a plate in the kitchen, and like all cats she considers it her duty to sit on any book that might be absorbing our interest. She's quite interested in computers too: here she is advising Dan on a particularly complex programming issue:


I suppose her stamina was greater than his, but eventually she fell asleep at the computer...

Cleo

This is Cleo, the oldest of our four cats, and also the most nervous. Being almost all black, she isn't very photogenic so I was pleased to catch this picture of her this morning, sitting on the table on our patio. Pity about the hosepipe apparently running through her, but it would have taken ages to edit it out!



Cleo is about seven years old now. A friend found her in Nicosia in Summer 1998, a tiny kitten abandoned outside an undertakers'. There were some other kittens too, and some chocolate milk which a passerby had given them, but Cleo looked the most likely to survive. As indeed she has. She is the mother of Sophia and Jemima although we had her neutured shortly afterwards!




This is what she looked like shortly after we acquired her seven years ago. She wasn't a very attractive kitten at all; her thin legs and swollen belly show how undernourished she had been at one point. We've no idea how long she and her siblings had been in their box. But we're glad we found her.

Decisions about Kittens

We've been looking after the orphaned kittens for six weeks now. Here's the blog entry describing how we found them, and here's another, with a picture showing how small they were a couple of days later. There are other photos and bits of kitten news scattered around the May and June archives.

But now they're about nine weeks old. They're strong, and getting increasinbly more adventurous. They keep themselves very clean, and they're exploring more and more of the garden. It won't be long before they can jump over our (low) fence separating them from the driveway, and then I dread to think what would happen if they rushed to meet the car one day, or tried to explore down the street. They're too tame to be feral kittens any longer; they don't know how to hunt or fend for themselves, and they don't know the dangers of traffic, or some of the people who (sadly) don't like cats.

On the other hand, our four adult cats will not tolerate kittens at all. They have mostly ignored them while they've lived outside, but are beginning to get disturbed by seeing them invade more and more of their territory. Even Jemima, most placid of the four, said something so rude to one of the kittens a couple of days ago that it raced across the patio with its ears down, and hid.

We don't know anyone who wants kittens, either. Particularly not two or three - and they're so sociable that it wouldn't be fair to send just one of them away. But nor can we keep seven kittens in our back garden forever. Moreover, Richard and I are going away for a few days in a week's time, and Tim (plus some people staying here) won't be around most of the daytime to feed and look after them.

So... we knew we would have to send some of them away, and the Paphiakos cat sanctuary in Paphos seemed - from all accounts - to be an excellent place for kittens. They find homes for some, and the others have plenty of freedom to run around and explore. One lady assured me that cats have a wonderful time there.

But we can't send away just a few of them. It wouldn't be fair, and I don't think they're ready to be separated yet anyway. Last week I provisionally booked a slot with the truck from Paphiakos that's coming to Larnaka this week, and today I had a call from a lady at the Cat Protection League charity shop, saying it will be here about 10am tomorrow. I've put this off long enough, but now does seem to be the time to let them go. So we went down there to collect a basket, not huge but bigger than the one we have, and will take them there tomorrow morning.

I will hate to see them go. It's so hard making a decision like this where my mind tells me it's right, and best for the kittens, and there are all kinds of good reasons for sending them away now... but my heart tells me they're adorable, and very happy where they are, and surely we could keep them just a little longer, or find someone who could look after some of them....

They all thought the basked was very interesting. I don't think there will be any trouble getting them inside tomorrow. I just hope they don't find it too distressing being in the car. Then we'll have to leave them at the shop - where I know they'll be looked after and treated well. Poor little things.

investigating the basket!

tabby, orange-and-white, large orange and tortoiseshell

small white

tortoiseshell

orange-and-white with white fluffy

little orange

tabby

Concern for Jemima

Having taken so many pictures of the feral kittens lately, I thought perhaps I should have some of our own cats for a change. Here's Jemima, whom I've written about a fair bit recently...

She went missing for three days last week, and reappeared on Wednesday looking unwell, but affectionate. She vanished again later, and came back on Saturday. So far so good.

Then on Sunday morning when I was getting out of the shower, Dan called out that Jemima was staggering around the kitchen. By the time I got there about three minutes later, it looked as if she was limping slightly, but then she was fine. A little while later I saw her sleeping on the window-sill with one leg poking out in the air, as she does sometimes... and thought, with relief, that she must have been doing that before, so her foot had simply gone to sleep for a few moments. Which would confuse a four-legged animal and make her stagger about.

Then at lunchtime we saw it happen again. She was on the floor, and suddenly appeared unable to walk. She crouched down low, looking rather miserable, and when I picked her up one of her back legs seemed a bit floppy. But when I stroked her, she purred affectionately and then jumped down about five minutes later, and was walking as normal. Strange. Daniel remembered that one of our neighbours had commented that he had seen our cats eating snakes. He wondered if one of the semi-venomous snakes had bitten her and paralysed her leg temporarily (which would have stopped her returning, of course) and that she had mostly recovered but was still having odd twinges. I didn't know if such a thing was possible, but it seemed like a reasonable theory.

She stayed in all day Sunday. She even used the cat litter rather than going out, and was very cuddly. She slept overnight in the kitchen and was affectionate again Monday morning. Then she went out... and once again we didn't see her for three days. This morning I heard her in the kitchen so went to see. She was by the food bowl, crouching down, but something was wrong with one of her front legs. She held it up strangely, and obviously couldn't walk on it properly. I picked her up, and she purred, so I brought her through to sit down for a few minutes. She looked fine in herself, just holding her leg awkwardly.

Then she jumped down, and started picking up her legs almost as if she were a horse on parade. She stamped her way through to the kitchen. It looked as if she had pins and needles... which made me wonder again if her leg had gone to sleep for some reason. Sure enough she was walking normally a few moments later. Then at lunchtime she started staggering and holding the front paw up awkwardly for a little while, and then was fine again. Since then she's had no problems although we've been watching her, and she's just gone out again.

Very strange. If she seemed ill or in pain, we'd take her to see the vet. But it's a traumatic experience for a cat going in the car, and then there would be a wait at the clinic (no appointments here - people just turn up and wait in order). If she's walking normally, then the vet wouldn't see anything wrong.

I've tried googling for advice but to no avail. She's only six years old so it seems unlikely she has any kind of arthritis, or that she's had a stroke. Besides, either of those would be likely to cause longer-term problems rather than five minutes of apparent paralysis two or three times per day. If it were a trapped nerve, then it would be the same paw each time - and again, probably more frequent. Perhaps her circulation is poor for some reason. Or perhaps Dan's snake-bite theory is correct and she's had a bite in a different place...

Saturday

I don't feel as if I've sat down much today. I got up early to feed the kitties as usual, then we had to go to the supermarket to do our weekly shop since Richard was too busy yesterday, catching up with work and also going with Dan to the hospital for his vaccinations. Oh, and I had to print the church bulletin which I produce every week, and photocopy it at our friendly local stationer.

Daniel produced a list of things he thinks he'll need before going on the Doulos, so we then went out by car to look for some of them. We did easily find him a pair of trainers (not always easy as his feet are rather bigger than the average Cypriot!) and also some sandals, at a discount shop called the Shoe Emporium.

Then we went to try and find him a mobile phone with international roaming service, but that wasn't such a success. There are two mobile service providers here in Larnaka. The one Richard prefers is a newish one (new to Cyprus, anyway) called Areeba. But when we asked if their service would work in Tanzania and Mozambique, they went through a lengthy list of countries that weren't even alphabetical, and couldn't find them. I'm not sure the girls in the shop even knew where those countries are!

So we went over the road to CYTA, the main phone company who have been around a lot longer. Unfortunately their mobile shop was closed. Still, when we got home we had a look online and found that their service does cover the countries Dan's going to, so we'll try again on Monday. Of course we need to buy an actual phone first... up to now he's resisted having a mobile, but agrees that it would be very useful when travelling. He just wants something small and basic, that does ordinary phoning and texts... surely there must be something amongst the many hundreds of designs that would suit his needs.

Saturday's early closing day in Cyprus (or at least in Larnaka) so we couldn't continue shopping in the afternoon.

To my delight when we arrived back for lunch, my missing cat Jemima had reappeared again and was asleep on one of the bookcases. She looked much better than she did when we saw her on Wednesday, and then spent a lot of the afternoon insisting I carry her around and cuddle her. Which made it rather difficult when watering the garden, as I did this evening!

Bits and Pieces

Doulos:

It looks as though Daniel will be going! Richard has managed to book (provisioinally) flights with Emirates Air, going via Dubai, at reasonable prices. Dan's drama teacher took him to the hospital, negociated his way through the complex system of chaos to find the nurse who does vaccinations, and he has had a tetanus/diphtheria booster - which he was due around this age anyway - and also the vaccination against yellow fever which is compulsory for entering Tanzania. He also now has an official yellow international vaccination record. So far the cost has been £8.80 which I'm sure is less than traveller vaccinations in the UK would cost. He has to go back for a polio booster a couple of days before he flies, and his drama teacher's sister will get hold of the others he's supposed to have: typhoid, meningitis A&C, and hepatitis A. Oh, and we need to find some anti-malarial tablets too.

There's no Tanzanian Embassy in Cyprus so we just hope and pray he can get the tourist visa at the Dar Es Salaam airport when he arrives. That's supposed to be possible but it's a bit worrying not to have the visa in advance. It's too late to send his passport to the UK to get it there.

Jemima:

Well... after she reappeared on Wednesday, she spent about half an hour sitting under my desk, then she went to sleep on Tim's windowsill for a while. I gently wiped her eye and removed some dirt; it didn't look particularly bad once the dirt was gone, and she purred when we stroked her. After a couple of hours she went out again... and we haven't seen her since. I'm not so worried now; I guess she's just found a comfortable place to sleep and will pop in again when she feels like it. One of our neighbours commented that our cats like eating snakes, so perhaps she's found a good supply of food and is content without us.

Feral Kittens:

Still doing well. Eating just three meals a day, grooming themselves well. Unfortunately they have rather a lot of fleas and are too young for most flea treatments; I've sprayed the place where they sleep with Biokill and brushed some herbal non-toxic flea repellant into their fur, and manually caught and killed several fleas. I guess there's not much else I can do. We keep saying that we MUST get round to getting in touch with the sanctuary in Paphos but they're still no trouble and are so cute....

Photos

When we first came here, we were shocked to find that having a film developed and printed cost about £7. Sending a film back to the UK, by contrast, cost about £3 and included a free film returne with the prints. So for seven years we've used the Directfoto Express film service, which is reliable, good quality, and takes about ten days to two weeks to return photos to Cyprus.

A couple of months ago Richard found an old (but good) camera left by another organisation, which nobody wanted. Daniel has been getting more interested in photography, and had said he hoped he'd get some good pictures on the Doulos. So Richard suggested he have this camera, which has fully manual exposure and other complicated stuff which I don't begin to understand, and much better zoom than Dan's current camera.

So he's been taking a few photos, and we were going to send his film away to be processed, just to check that the camera was actually working. It hadn't been used for about fifteen years, probably.

But as he's now going on the Doulos in a fortnight, we didn't want to send the film back to the UK as we couldn't be certain it would arrive in time. So he took it in to a local developing place, and I thought we'd just have to pay the £7, or maybe more by this time.

To my surprise, the cost was only £5. What's more, he got not just the photos but an index print, a free mini photo album AND a free film. All that and four-hour processing....

So suddenly I think we might be getting our films developed here after all. Supporting a local firm is all to the good, and it's much nicer to have prints back immediately. Of course I take most of my everyday pictures on the digital camera now, but when I want prints I use my real one. If I can get them processed locally and inexpensively, I may take more in future.

Jemima returned :-) :-)

I had - sadly - given up on Jemima. Friends down the road had a cat simply vanish a while ago. He didn't turn up one day, and they never found out what had happened.

Ten minutes ago I heard a mew from the kitchen and thought it was Sophia (Jemima's twin) asking for something. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw Jemima herself at the food bowl! I picked her up to cuddle her, and she felt very light, but then she's always been the lightest of the four cats.

However she's not happy. One of her eyes looks as if it's been in an injury: perhaps she was in a fight, or caught it on a tree branch or something. It's very weepy, but she won't let me go near it. She's sitting on the floor under my desk at the moment, and doesn't want to be stroked. What's more, I gave her some yogurt and she didn't want it, which is most unlike her.

Cats usually recover from injury or illness on their own; it could be, as Tim suggested, that she wasn't well and has been taking some time out comvalescing away from the family. In which case, she must be better to have returned. But of course if she's still miserable tomorrow, or if the eye looks infected, we'll have a visit to the vet.

I'm still smiling at her having reappeared, though.

Jemima

Well the seven feral kittens are still fine, but one of our four adult cats has been missing for a couple of days :-(. It's Jemima, the one who considers herself to be my cat. I didn't worry much when we didn't see her yesterday - in the summer she often sleeps all morning, wanders in for a snack at some point during the day, and then goes outside again in the evening. Usually I get at least some glimpse of her, but it was entirely possible I'd missed her...

But today she still hasn't been around. I've been keeping an ear out, and called for her several times; Dan went out and hunted around the whole neighbourhood earlier this evening. The other three are fine, but no Jemima.

It's the first time this has happened to us, but of course cats do vanish. The worrying thing is that some Cypriots like to poison cats with a most unpleasant substance that's illegal in the rest of Europe. Or of course she could have been run over, but she's not a cat who wanders far form our house, and she has pretty good road sense. I now wonder if she's been jealous of the attention I've been giving the kittens and has run away - but where would a cat run?

All we can do is hope and pray and wait.