I’ve just realised I didn’t write a blog in July and if I had, I would have told you about the perils of tinned cat food in summer. I went to Fort Feral to dish out some of that late in July I think it was, and was swarmed by some wasps, one of whom stung me on the leg. They were desperate to get into the tin and I had to make a hasty exit. Hence, the end of tinned cat food in the summer. Wasps are a worry here as there have been a few deaths – yes deaths – from the Asian Hornet (vespa velutina) which is apparently moving in to the area, and is aggressive towards humans – not to mention bees. The deaths were due to allergies and I think the sheer number of stings made treatment difficult. Anyway, these were normal smaller hornets, and it appears I am not allergic. So quite a useful experience really!

​It has been fiesta season here in Galicia, and Spain, and that means the building work has ground to  virtual standstill as people go away to the beach, or hang out at the pool in the stiflingly hot weather. 

I would have been doing either or both of these but there was an incident involving a very sharp vegetable peeler, a sweet potato, and my left thumb, some weeks ago, which left me unable to do many things, including swim! Thumbs turn out to be very useful indeed and the trapping of cats I was planning, was also a casualty as those traps are fiddly! And I guess perhaps not the cleanest items for a recovering thumb to be handling.

As well as this inconvenience, there has been a mystery of the three musketeers disappearing – that is Zorro, Clem Fandango, and Huskie*.
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They disappeared for around 4 days quite suddenly, and in unison. They returned pretty much all together, and we put it down to nearby fiesta-related barbecue action – far superior to the dry cat food they’ve been getting. You could put this migration down to the wasp sting in fact! Here is Clem pressing his nose up against the glass one morning, while Zorro looks on, back to normal.

Anyway they are back, and all okay. However, some clear factions have been forming with the cats.
There are now four groups:

• The London Homees – dominant in and around the house (led by Scruffy, who is the King)
• The three musketeers* – dominant around Fort Feral (led by Huskie I would say), tolerated by Scruffy - just!
• Calypso and Ronny – peripheral and get what they can (not led by anyone)
• Jessie and Bette Davis – even more peripheral (and may not be speaking even to each other!)

Jessie and Bette Davis used to be the permanent fixtures around the house, but the arrival of the London Homees has upset that and weirdly, Scruffy and Zaldi (our two neutered males) seem to dislike them intensely. Why would they tolerate the gang of neutered males and detest the neutered females? Bette and Jessie don’t seem to be welcome at Fort Feral either. The result is that neither Bette nor Jessie get much of a look in food-wise, so we are resorting to other tactics. Here is Bette Davis waiting in one of the abandoned houses where we’ve started feeding her. She had just been snoozing in an old basket.

And here is Jessie being fed down the lane, towards the woods. She won’t even come near me now!

We may have to move one of the feeding stations to somewhere completely different to handle the factions.
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Speaking of feeding, this appears to be feeding time in Monforte de Lemos – someone needs to start trap-neuter-returning!

​*Zorro Is Porthos: a dandy, fond of fashionable clothes and keen to make a fortune for himself. The least cerebral of the quartet, he compensates with his homeric strength of body and character.
Huskie is Athos: Comte de la Fère: he has never recovered from his marriage to Milady and seeks solace in wine. Milady may well be Calypso.
Clem is D’Artagnan: Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan: a young, foolhardy, brave and clever man seeking his fortune.

A sultry summer has arrived and the feral cats disappear during the day, to emerge around 7 pm in the big courtyard, lying about on the gravel. There seems to be a peaceful but finely balanced Mexican stand-off in which Scruffy (clearly the King of the Courtyard) luxuriates on his back giving himself a good scratch on the gravel, between house and ferals, demonstrating that he is indeed King and should a feral get too close to the house they will get a good thwack.

Waiting at an acceptable distance are usually three neutered boys: Husky, Clem Fandango and Zorro. Up at Fort Feral there are usually some others, Calypso (the butterfly cat) and Bandido, and sometimes Bette Davis and Jessie. Scruffy occasionally makes an appearance to observe proceedings from a nearby wall, but happily follows me back to the house on my return journey.
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Husky, shown below, has a bit of a complex about sharing and as the food goes down into each of the three feeding stations, he darts from one to the other as if to say ‘It’s all mine! Stop eating it!’ which is pretty futile on his part as the others take advantage of his mania and get stuck in.

​It’s funny how behaviour develops. When I emerge from the kitchen door with their food they all gallop off ahead of me, knowing I am destined for Fort Feral and two in particular, the two friendliest – Clem and Zorro – weave in and out of my legs, leapfrogging each other, round and round and I have to take care not to fall over! I end up doing an impression of John Wayne so that they can indeed run around my legs. What is this about? Sheer enthusiasm? A ploy to trip me up so I spill the food and they get to eat it more quickly? If one of the builders is to be believed it is to trip me up so I break my neck, perish in the finca and provide a food source until someone notices I’ve disappeared!

​For your viewing delight I have included a photo of what I think must be ‘excrement of fox’. It is not the first time such a specimen has appeared in a food bowl at Fort Feral, and again it is pretty strange behaviour! Okay, so maybe there wasn’t any food left for him or her, but it does seem a bit mean – albeit skilful - to have a dump in a food bowl in protest. Churlish I would say!

Mizuki is at home at the moment, seemingly quite happy (as long as she gets cold milk twice a day). Apparently ‘everyone knows her’ now in the town down the road, and her absences from home - which have ranged from 4 days to 8 weeks – are considered impressive but foolhardy. Some people from the town wandering by yesterday, stopped for a chat and commented, ‘Well they do say cats have seven lives’. I told them they have two additional ones in English speaking countries. I had a look at this online and it appears that there are no claims beyond 9, but the number of lives is 6 in Arabic-speaking countries, and 7 in Spanish-speaking countries. 

I will leave you with Clem and Husky on another handy waiting surface ... out of Scruffy's reach.

The funny thing is, there is another neutered-boy-couple, who eat at Josefa’s house and similarly are each other’s shadows. They are Nigel and Frank Sinatra (or Nigel, comma, and Frank Sinatra as they are not quite singing siblings), so what is going on?

Have we discovered a biological adaptation to being neutered? I wonder if once they lose some of their hormone-derived aggression after the snip, they opt for safety in numbers. The two couples seem not to wander from the village and are always together, even if squabbling. Clemmy and Husky sleep in our outside boiler room in a large plastic chest with cushions. Not bad going in the scheme of things!

Husky and Clem wait outside the kitchen door every morning, and this is my view every day as they lead the way to the comederos at Fort Feral. ​

The rain has not stopped for weeks and weeks here and all over Spain. They say ‘En abril, aguas mil’ (In April, a thousand showers). ​

Patrick and Karen from Scotland were just here and bravely slogged through mud on a few walks around the area, all the time no doubt considering Barbados next spring!  At least the dams are full and the drought must be officially over. 

I guess I could have predicted that this blog would start to include the pet cats, even if the Butterfly Cat charity doesn’t (despite the pets drooling over the cheap out-of-bounds dry food!). The fact is they all interact, and quite positively so far. I think Scruffy may even have a bit of a thing for both Bette Davis and Jessie. He gets quite puffed up and animated when they come around. 

Mizuki (our Bengal) has been gone for 7 weeks now. Someone said they thought they saw her in nearby village but we have followed that up and drawn a blank. Apart from that, no one has responded to our posters which are up all over the countryside, in bus stops and on lampposts. It is hard not knowing what happened to her when she wandered off all those Saturdays ago, and unless she is warm and safe and hunting in a barn somewhere, the possibilities are bleak.

Still the work with the ferals goes on. Here’s Patrick, ‘Pet Feeder of the Month’ getting amongst it in the undergrowth one evening. Thank you!!
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Sometimes it is better to wait than act hastily, trap and traumatise a cat that might ‘come good’ on his own. If the wound does swell up again though, I will take him in, regardless of him protesting that it’s ‘just a scratch’. 

Apart from the continuous presence of Husky, and twice a week visits of Clem Fandango, Bette Davis and Jessie, there are not many cats around right now, or maybe they are turning up at night to see what’s left in the comederos.

The builders are here every day and Jose Manuel has some feral cats he looks after on his finca. One has just had kittens and he is looking for homes for them. I have been pushing the point about neutering, and printed out the chart below for him today. It’s staggering, and he was suitably impressed. ​I'll let you know what happens.

Hopefully, the rainbow yesterday heralds some good weather and some news of our own small tabby creature. ​

Written 15 February:

Have you ever driven along a long dark highway, and in the rear vision mirror you can see other cars behind you, weaving along the road, their headlights bright as they follow you towards wherever you are going? It’s like that every time I go to feed the feral cats in the evening. I have my headlamp on. It is on a thick piece of elastic around my beanie (Australian for woolly hat). Yep, very attractive! But it means my hands are free to help climb over the wall and also put the food in the bowls, and fight any wolves that appear out of the darkness. That last bit was just to see if you were awake. There are no wolves here anymore, sadly.

Actually, I have always coveted a headlamp, and had an excuse to get one for exactly this purpose, and I am sure some of the many, many readers of this blog are feeling a little stab of envy, go on admit it! You know you want one and I know you can find a reason to secure one. They are very good value, made in China no doubt and cheap as chips.

Anyway, the eyes glow in the light and I can see many, many pairs of headlights following me in an enthusiastic but orderly fashion, on their way, single file, to the feeding stations.

We have changed our approach, so we feed dry food at night instead of canned food. This is because of foxes being spotted on the wildlife camera near the feeding stations and we figure that they’ll be less attracted by dry food than the saucy flavours of gravy laden canned food – which arrive late morning instead of at night. During the day, you never see a fox. They are asleep in the woods. The wolves were probably once sleeping in the same woods, before they were eradicated.

We’ve been here five weeks now, the longest in the ten years we’ve been coming here. Yes, we are really living here. But living here in a strange kind of way. Building work is all around, in fact we are living on a building site in reality. But the builders go off for siesta from 1.30 until 3.30 and as this is the nicest part of the day, if it’s sunny, we are all outside. That is, Adam, me and three of the four London cats – plus all the ferals. Three of the four because Zita is not at all sure about all of this country life quite yet. 

And despite all the worry, the London 3 (at least) and the ferals are all fine together. They are curious about each other, but there is very little aggression, not that we have seen anyway. We are keeping the London lot inside at night, at least for now, and that means blocking the catflap because they really want to get out amongst it, except for Zita.

We let them out in the morning and it would appear that one of them trots over the way to our new (ancient, being renovated) house, in advance of the arrival of the builders, and relieves itself in a strategic position somewhere on the concrete floor. The builders draw my attention to this event every now and then. I say, well it must be a fox. They say no, it’s a cat. I say, must be a feral. They say, it’s only been happening since the London cats have been here. I shrug, they shrug. I think ‘Mizuki!’. And here she is. She is the eldest of our cats, and quite a character. Obviously. 
 

Postscript: I have been delaying posting this blog, because Mizuki has disappeared. This is not unusual. She would be gone for three weeks at a stretch when we lived in London, but we are worried because 'we're not in Kansas anymore Toto!'. Adam thinks he saw her in the village across the way, with the rather handsome Bandido, and we are hoping that was her, but we haven't seen her there again and the weather has been very cold. She may well be hunting mice in a barn full of hay - let's hope so, and that she comes home soon.

The day is nearly here when the four London cats emigrate to Spain. With their humans.

One (cat, not human) is currently incarcerated in a cattery in south east London because she is a flight risk. I am not kidding, this particular 11 year old female tabby (old enough to know better), ‘Mizuki’, is constantly AWOL and had been off on her travels for ten days, when she sauntered in on 28 December as if nothing at all was amiss. And she returned because it was suddenly very cold. If it had been going to stay really cold from then on we would have been more confident of her hanging around (making herself available for imminent departure), but it was not to be and the weather was increasingly mild. So, what to do? We locked her in with us for 48 hours. First in a cage for the purpose and then ‘loose’ in the loungeroom, with cat-flap blocked.

This would be fine, and manageable with a normal cat, but Mizuki is not. She is a madam, highly independent and very, er … expressive. Her vocal repertoire ranges from sweet mewing entreaties (“oh go on, let me out”), through low growls including while she’s eating (“now I’m getting really pissed off”), to blood-curdling bellows emanating from her throat that communicate extreme displeasure and pierce your very soul, creating instant guilt (“Help me, for the love of god! These people are trying to kill me!”).

So, I found a cattery that had a space. On our arrival they asked if she was any particular breed and we answered that she was half Bengal, at which point the owner said they don’t normally take Bengals because they are so disruptive. Yikes!
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Anyway, Mizuki is now there, incarcerated, awaiting deportation on Saturday 6 January 2018.

Her three housemates are doing their usual thing and we don’t expect trouble, even though we are living in an increasingly chaotic setting with boxes and packing stuff everywhere and the house becoming empty and echo-ey.
Here’s Mizuki. Don’t be taken in by the seemingly relaxed demeanour on the sofa. There is always one eye open ready for escape.

​News of the London Homeys and the Butterfly Cat and her friends coming soon! 

A very quick blog from a very cold Ribeira Sacra. There is lots going on as we prepare to move here from London in 5 weeks' time. Time is flying by and we'll be here before we know it.

I have been feeding the cats in their new comedors and it is clear that some have mastered this new way of doing things and some just haven't. Here´s Jessie happily eating in the sun yesterday, and below is Bette Davis who I am afraid may need more practise! And that frost must have been nasty.

I will write more next month but until then, thanks to Celia, Jennifer and Patrick for some generous donations to the butterflycat recently. They are much appreciated!

I spent nearly a full three weeks in Galicia during September, and it was glorious. The weather was gorgeous in terms of warm sunshine, but the lack of rain was a definite worry, and people were talking about that. Soon after I arrived there was a bushfire just over the valley and I watched for a while as two or three helicopters went back and forth with water scooped up from the Cabe River. Apparently the Galician fire service has a reputation for being 'the business', and they certainly react quickly around here. They went to help in Portugal recently too, when there were terrible fires over the border. Here is a photo which is so bad (apologies) it has a paint-by-numbers look about it. But you'll get the idea!

Chubby Chops has become a permanent fixture around the garden, in case you hadn't noticed, and I noticed that he had a bit of a cold. I will try to embed a video here so you can hear his chest (I kid you not - but you have to be patient!). If the video does work you'll see that he is trying to figure out if I have anything to give him! I spoke to a couple of very helpful vets about what to do and in the end we got some antibiotics into him via some syrup on his food. The verdict was it was probably cat flu and best to try and get it sorted before the winter. I am crossing my fingers that we have succeeded but I won't know until Adam and I are back in Galicia later this month. Thank you Jane for doing dose 5! CC is a sweet-natured fella who seems to know that discretion may be the better part of valour, and is quite the ladies' man.

Speaking of which, Husky was neutered last week. He was a handful to trap and decant from trap to cage, but I managed it just about. He sauntered off in a relaxed manner when I let him go a few hours after the op, and was back for dinner that evening! 1 down, around 4 males to go ... Here he is:

There have been lots of humans around lately and Cristina was Cat Feeder of the Month for September - yay!

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​We have all been dining on an abundance of grapes and figs, and I know for a fact that the badgers have been joining us in the latter. I have footage on the wildlife camera to attest to badgers, foxes and boars being a bit partial. What a shame cats don't eat figs! We have had a massive crop of them. In making the cat food stretch out however, I have started to adopt our neighbour Josefa's tactic of adding pasta ...  more on that, and maybe a photo, later. 

Finally, many thanks to some people who have donated to the Butterfly Cat recently. This will help hugely in the purchase of cat feeding stations, which are being built as a I type! Thanks Jennifer, and thanks Jane & Trevor.