A Lepidopteran Feast

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Red Admiral on ‘feral’ buddleia

Dear Readers, thank you for sticking with me for the past week – this morning I woke up after my first proper nights sleep in ten days feeling about a billion percent better than I did. I will still be taking things easy for a few days, but it’s nice to not feel just like crawling back to bed. And one of the great things about my office is that I can bird and bug watch out of the window. There has been a great collection of new-minted butterflies today, like this red admiral. I always feel that their undersides are every bit as beautiful as the rather brash scarlet and chocolate on their upperwings. Look at the delicate tracery of sky-blue, the hint of crimson, the way the different shades of cream and cocoa and coffee blend. What a splendid creature! And then, as if to prove me wrong when I said that no one liked the much brighter buddleia in the back garden, this beauty turned up.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui)

The underside of this one is even more magnificent, but what impresses me is that this butterfly has quite possible arrived from Morocco – it’s a long -distance migrant that travels in search of thistles to lay its eggs upon, and ‘breaks out’ every so often when food in North Africa becomes scarce. Some butterflies then make the journey in the opposite direction. This one was so fresh that it actually made me gasp. My husband might have got a picture of it with its orange wings open, providing a contrast with the flower that my Mum would have loved (she always did love magenta and tangerine together). If so, I will pop it into the post. 

And finally, on the way to the shed to top up the bird feeder (yet again – the squirrel has been busy as usual) I disturbed a creature which flashed tomato-red at me before landing on the yew. This is my first Jersey Tiger of the year, the Vulcan bomber of the moth world. This is a moth that used to be all over the place, but is increasingly common in the south of the UK and will no doubt move north and west as fast as climate change will allow.

Jersey tiger (Euplagia quadripunctaria)

And here’s a little view of the underside. It reminds me of a stained glass window.

So, here’s to feeling better. There’s nothing like a few days of mild misery to make one appreciate not only how great it is when you no longer have a headache, but how hard it must be to live with chronic problems, and what a special strength it takes to keep going and to make something of a rotten situation. And thanks to all of you for your concern, it really means a lot, and has certainly kept me going!

Feelin’ Good (Well, Better Anyway…)

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‘Dwarf ‘ Buddleia

Dear Readers, apart from waking up in the night with a fever today I’ve actually had a pretty good day, so fingers crossed that it continues! Some of the highlights of today have been:

  • Trying to do a lateral flow test. Oh lord I am fed up with tickling my tonsils and poking things up my nose but as little children are doing that every day I’m happy to suck it up once in a while. But why did my test come back void when I’d done everything right? Very disappointing. I shall have another bash tomorrow, but as I’m on the mend I suspect that my viruses are waving goodbye to me as we speak. Let’s hope they’re not heading off to infect my husband or we’ll have a wonderful week off.
  • Look at the ‘dwarf’ Buddleia! I’d say it’s about nine feet tall. Everything seems to grow gigantic in my garden. It’s a beautiful colour, but the bees and butterflies much prefer the feral mauve one in the front garden.

  • I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the Olympics, but I have been most taken with Simone Biles, the US athlete, who spoke out  vigorously when one of the coaches was convicted of sexually assaulting the girls. She isn’t the most graceful gymnast I’ve ever seen (says she, who can just about manage a forward roll if given a push) but when she jumps she seems to defy gravity, a characteristic she shares with some of the best ice skaters and other athletes. Apparently the Gymnastics committee can’t keep up with the complexity and daring of her jumps, and is consistently underrating their difficulty. To me, she’s an absolute powerhouse, and considering that the floor work finals in London in 2012 featured 8 white athletes, she will be a model of excellence for lots of little girls watching the Olympics. Just have a look at her here.
  • And in other news, a Judoka from tiny Kosovo has won a gold medal in Judo. I’m always cheering on the little countries. Distria Krasniqi apparently took up judo after practicing with her brother, and she beat someone from Japan in the women’s 48kg final. Well done that woman!
  • And because I’ve been spending so much time feeling sorry for myself in bed, I discovered these domino videos – people basically set up thousands of dominos, tip one and hope that the effect will ripple out. I find them strangely fascinating but also horrifying – all that work destroyed in two minutes! And who cleans it all up? Do the dominoes need to be sorted back into their individual boxes to be reused at a later event? It looks like entropy in action, but I do still quite like it. There’s an example here.
  • And finally, in keeping with our musical theme yesterday (I agree with you all, it’s Elvis all the way for me, though Peggy Lee does a decent job), here is the unmatchable, incomparable Nina Simone, singing my theme song for today. Enjoy!

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot (But Not in a Good Way)

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Well Dear Readers, here is sickbed update number seven, and if only my fever would behave itself I feel as if I might actually be on the verge of getting better. I am cautiously hopeful at the moment so keep your fingers crossed! Goodness knows what this is, but I will be very glad to wave goodbye to it.

Anyhow, I was sitting in the garden and something jet- black flew in – I honestly thought it was a smut from someone’s bonfire, or a scrap of black dustbin bag. But then it landed on the hemp agrimony, and I could see that it was a peacock butterfly, as fresh as you like. I didn’t manage to get a photograph of its spectacular eyespots, but in a way that satanic black was so surprising that I wasn’t sorry.

When the light changed, I could see that the ends of the antennae have tiny gold spots on them, and you can see the butterfly’s long tongue probing into the flower.

Lots of other insects are enjoying it as well. Such a raggedy plant and yet every year it’s popular. The purple loosestrife is just coming into flower too, so there will be plenty to keep this lot going until September at least.

And then there’s this plant, which will hopefully provide some autumn sustenance – once upon a time it was called sedum but it’s now a Hylotelephium, though what variety it is I can’t remember – chip in if you know! It’s a most delightful chocolate colour.

Anyhow, to round this off, I thought I’d leave you with a few ‘fever’ songs for your delectation. Firstly, the wonderful ‘Hot, Hot, Hot’ by Arrow – if this doesn’t get a party started, I don’t know what will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L9jBi7sGsc

And now, two versions of ‘Fever’. What a great song this is! See whether you prefer Peggy Lee or Elvis. I think Elvis has the edge for me, but how I love that you can hear every single word, and the weight of erotic meaning that both artists give to it. Summer is officially here, though if my personal summer could get back to normal body temperature I’d be ecstatic.

‘Fever’ – Peggy Lee Version

‘Fever’ – Elvis Version

Spoke Too Soon…

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Dear Readers, after feeling as if I was on the mend yesterday my fever has come back with a vengeance today. What the hell is going on? Maybe that quip about malaria isn’t so wide of the mark. Anyhow, at least I’m not working so I can crash out in bed with my teeth chattering. There are different schools of thought on whether you’re better off bringing the fever down, or letting it run its course – the fever is the body’s way of fighting the infection but it doesn’t make it a lot of fun for the battleground (i.e. me). So, I am holding on for as long as possible and then taking paracetamol when I can’t stand it any more. Hopefully it will all sort itself out. It would be heavily ironic to have a week off and be sick until it’s time to go back to work.

Anyway.

What I wanted to say was that I never miss my Mum so much as when I’m sick. I feel myself longing for her instinctive way of comforting and coaxing, her patience and those lovely cold hands on my forehead. She was always at the ready with a tin of Heinz tomato soup, or fish with mashed potato and a parsley sauce, or a boiled egg with soldiers. Best of all were the chilled tinned peaches with Bird’s custard. She could persuade anyone to eat, my Mum.

Sometimes when we were children we’d have what were described as ‘bilious attacks’. These generally involved vomiting all over ourselves and the bedclothes. My long hair was a particular challenge. Mum would change the sheets, wash my hair, change the pyjamas, put me back into bed and sing a medley of songs from the early sixties. She had a great fondness for Ghost Riders in the Sky, I remember, and also ‘The Girl in the Wood‘ – clearly Frankie Laine was a favourite. Generally, an hour after we’d gone to sleep we’d do it all over again. I never had the sense that Mum was the slightest bit irritated, but of course I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I remember that poem about love’s ‘austere and lonely offices’ by Robert Hayden, and it seems to me that that is what love is – the things that you do when you don’t feel like it, the little things that no one even notices at the time. I remember those nights, with Mum singing in the semi-darkness as a kind of magic. It seemed to me that she could heal anything, and I had absolute faith in her ability to know what to do. What a responsibility, and yet it felt like what she was born to do.

I still miss you, Mum. I always will.

On the Mend

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Dear Readers, I am pleased to say that my fever seems to have broken and I’m starting to feel a bit better, but still intend to take things steadily until I’m back up to speed. It’s always a shock to realise that you’re only one virus/trip/blood clot away from disaster, so let’s be careful out there, lovelies.

So I thought I’d start with a view from the back of the garden, beside the shed. In the late afternoon it’s the shadiest place to sit, which is a blessing at the moment.

The whitebeam is having a mini-mast year – it went berserk last year, but it’s not doing too badly in 2021.

Whitebeam fruit

And how about my splendid grassy-thing? I think it’s a Stipa but no doubt someone will tell me otherwise. It provides a bit of cover for the poor froglets, though if I was them I’d stay in the pond for now.

I have ivy growing over the oak sleepers (which are largely falling to pieces now but are valuable habitat anyway)

And although my husband cut the Virginia creeper back almost to the ground, it looks to be doing ok to me. It too provides a lot of useful cover, mainly for spiders I notice, and the colour in autumn is really something. It’s continuously reaching for the branches of the whitebeam and infiltrating the shed, and if it ever achieves the former we’ve had it 🙂

And in other news, how about this sweetheart? Every year gatekeeper butterflies put in an appearance just as the hemp agrimony opens its flowers. It makes me so happy, and this one is so new-minted.

And here is something exciting. I thought there was something strange about this bumblebee – it didn’t quite fit into any of the categories that I’d lovingly memorised. I asked the folk over at the Wasps, Bees and Ants group on Facebook, and it turns out that this little chap (for indeed he is a male) is either a Vestal Cuckoo Bee (Bombus vestalis) or a Gypsy Cuckoo Bee (Bombus bohemicus). As the former is much commoner in the South I’m going to plump for that. Cuckoo bees mimic other bumblebees (in this case the Buff-Tailed Bumblebee, Bombus terrestris). What a tale of skullduggery this is! In bumblebees, the queen-like cuckoo bee enters the nest and lays low until the resident queen has raised enough workers to support the intruder. Then, she kills or subdues the real ‘queen’ (she might simply drag the existing queen off her nest, a behaviour known as ‘mauling’). She may also kill the older workers who rush to defend the queen, but clearly it isn’t in her interests to kill too many or she’ll be unsupported (cuckoo bee females do not collect nectar or pollen themselves once they’ve found a nest).  The younger workers and any larvae are allowed to remain and become ‘slaves’, feeding the queen and her grubs. The cuckoo bumblebee does not produce her own workers, so she has to depend on the ones that she’s subdued, presumably through pheromone production. Cuckoo bees produce very few males, so I was lucky to see this chap enjoying himself on the teasel. Note the two pale stripes, and the abdomen which is a bit pointier than usual.

Well, that’s quite enough for today! I’m off to put my feet up. See you tomorrow…

 

Negative, But….

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Herb Robert seed pods

Dear Readers, I was very impressed by the speed with which my Covid -19 test results came back – the kit was sent off on Sunday and it was announced that I was negative on Monday. However, I have spent most of today in bed, shivering and with my teeth chattering, so clearly all is not well yet. I find it astonishing how even the roots of my hair feel sore, and how in the middle of a heatwave I wanted nothing so much as a hot water bottle. Still, with any luck I’ll be feeling a bit better tomorrow, especially as it’s my six-monthly performance review and I’ll need to be on the ball!

I just thought that you might want to see exactly why hardy geraniums are called cranesbills. Don’t these seedpods look just like the heads of an elegant bird?

Photo One by TJflex at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tjflex/49264893542

Sandhill Cranes (Photo One)

Photo Credits

Photo One by TJflex at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tjflex/49264893542

Self Isolation Day Three

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Dear Readers, there are definitely worse fates than being stuck at home with a fridge full of food and a job that doesn’t involve any commuting. Today I am a bit brain-fogged and tired, but definitely improving.  I decided to spend half an hour in the garden to see what was going on before I headed back for a sleep (luxury!) and of course the bumblebees visiting the teasel caught my eye. I love the way that they dig right into the flowers to get at the nectar – I’m guessing that only the longer-tongued species can get at it, and certainly the hoverflies who land sometimes look a bit confused before flying off to something friendlier.

I was delighted to hear the children on their way to school this morning remarking on the bumblebees on the lavender and buddleia in the front garden. I must be doing something right. I sometimes think of bumblebees as a kind of gateway to the insect world for children – they’re big, furry, unlikely to sting unless really harassed, and have a kind of ramshackle charm that belies their superb adaptation to their environment and intelligence.

Honestly, who wouldn’t love them and want to look after them? On a sadder note, I found two bumblebees trussed up in a spider’s web on the fence. I might pop out later to see who the culprit is, but the web is very impressive. I did check to see if the bees were already dead, and they were, otherwise I might have had a tricky moral dilemma for all of ten seconds before I rescued them. I will spare you the photos, but here’s the web, and rather beautiful it is too.

Close to it a much smaller, less bee-murdering spider has slung a web. This is your typical diadem orb-web spider (Araneus diadematus), a very variable and common species but welcome for all that. Spiders eat so many garden ‘pests’ that I suspect we’d be chin deep in mosquitoes and greenfly if they didn’t exist.

For those of you on the edge of your seats about my small white butterfly egg, it’s turned yellow, which I think is a good sign…

And in other very exciting news, I noticed this while trying to follow a mystery moth. I discovered both that I suddenly have enchanter’s nightshade in the garden and leafcutter bees! Until I moved to East Finchley I had no idea that there were leafcutter bees in the UK, but then I saw that my rose leaves had these perfect half-circles taken out of them, and tied this in to the little bees that I saw feeding on what I thought was elecampane. How exciting! I shall keep an eye on it and see if I can catch them in the act, though I sense that it’s a little bit late in the year.

And now I’m off for a lie down. See you tomorrow, readers!

Oh The Irony….

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Dear Readers, there is something a little ironic about having gotten through 18 months of a pandemic without even being pinged by the NHS app, only to catch something and end up self-isolating when ‘Freedom Day’ is today, 19th July. On the other hand, ‘Freedom Day’ won’t be freedom for vulnerable people, people who have compromised immune systems because of chemotherapy, elderly people or anyone else who has reason to fear the devastating potential effects of this virus. With only 50% of the country double-vaccinated, would it really have hurt to keep things on an even keel for another month or so? I don’t doubt that most people will continue to be sensible, but there has been a leadership vacuum of colossal proportions in this country. My heart goes out to people working in the NHS who are seeing the numbers of the hospitalized rising inexorably. We have been abandoned. No wonder so many people are filled not with joy at the unlocking, but with trepidation.

Anyhow, I have done my Covid test and posted it, and now I wait to see if what I have is something known or something unknown. I feel a bit tired, but basically much better, so I will just have to be a patient patient. Thank you for all the good wishes, and in particular to the person who reminded me that even if  it’s not Covid it doesn’t mean that  I should rush headlong back into my usual frantic round of activity – I think the phrase was ‘other viruses are available’, which made me hoot.  That is excellent advice. I feel tired to my bones somehow: it’s sometimes a struggle just putting one foot in front of another. But then, there’s always the garden, and it’s too blooming hot to do any actual work so I just sat in the shade and tried to pay attention, as that is the cure for most ills.

If you look very carefully at the picture below, you can just see a tiny plane about to enter the clouds. Who remembers that feeling when you’re on a flight and the plane starts to judder as you enter the clouds, as if it’s flying through something viscous? Or that extraordinary sensation when you get above the clouds and there’s the sun and that perfect blue? It always reminds me of that Buddhist sense that behind all our nonsense there is that clear, vast ‘mind’ that is available to all of us if only we could put other things aside.

I wouldn’t want you all to think that I was being too lazy, so I actually got up and wandered over to the pot of ‘wild flowers’ that we planted about a month ago. It’s fair to say that they haven’t been a stunning success, but what’s with the brassica? It looks like oilseed rape to me.

But all is not lost, because I did notice a small white butterfly hanging around earlier this morning, and when I bent down for a closer look, she has laid a single egg. Now, if you’re a gardener I can imagine you not being that impressed, but at least Small Whites only lay one egg, as opposed to 50 like a Large White. I shall have to see if this one survives, and shall have to remind my poor long-suffering husband not to water too enthusiastically this evening when he gets the hosepipe out.

In other news, the Great Willowherb is just opening. Every year the buds are parasitized by some little moth, and every year it seems to make not a jot of difference to the flowering.

And the collared doves are huddled in the whitebeam for shade. I think these birds are underestimated on the looks front, with their subtle shades of cinnamon and fawn and dusty grey.

And so, there you have it. I expect a few more garden posts in the next few days, but the weather looks gorgeous. Stay safe out there, UK people, and avoid any idiots….

A Mid July Walk in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

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Dear Readers, after a most peculiar day yesterday, when I seemed to run completely out of energy, I felt a bit better this morning, so decided to go for a somewhat truncated walk in the cemetery. I can avoid getting close to people, and felt quite a lot better, so it felt like a reasonable thing to do. Alas, halfway round it seemed like I am still not myself, so I went home to isolate and have ordered a test. I still think it will be negative, but you can’t be too sure.

Anyhow, the first thing I noticed was that the cherry plums, who seem to have been in bloom only about twenty minutes ago, are now dropping their fruit. How quickly the year goes!

And just look at the swamp cypress. After a slow start, it’s now truly magnificent.

The wild carrot is in flower. The young flowerheads are a dusty pink, the older ones bright white.

The white flowerhead has the characteristic single red flower in the middle, and botanists think that this has evolved to convince pollinators to come visit – it looks just like a small beetle already feeding. The pink flowers have one too, but they aren’t as obvious (yet).

it’s certainly persuaded this long-horned beetle to drop by.

The conkers are doing very nicely, though the leaves of the horse chestnut are looking worse every week.

The yellow and white stonecrops are being overtaken by this pretty pink-flowered plant, which I think is Caucasion stonecrop (Phedimus spurius). I am fascinated by the way that some graves form a good habitat for these plants, and others don’t – I’m guessing it’s all down to a mix of soil, sun and exposure.

It really does have a mid-summer feeling to it today – temperature in the ’80’s, sun beating down….

We stop for a most uncharacteristic rest, and a jumping spider pops onto my leg…

The evening primrose is coming into flower.

And what a pleasure it is, on these long, hot days, to walk along a shady lane.

 

Fostered Felines and an Unexpected Gift (Again)

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Willow

Willow

Dear Readers, I am feeling a little under the weather this afternoon (I’m 99% sure it’s not the dreaded Covid-19, so please don’t worry). So, I decided to share this post from 2015 for those of you who haven’t seen it before, and, judging by the popularity of the Bailey post there are plenty of cat lovers out there. So I hope you enjoy it, and normal service will be resumed tomorrow. 

Dear Readers, although I usually write about the wildlife outside my house, today I would like to share some tales with you about the creatures that we actually select as our companions. My husband and I began to foster cats for Cats Protection back in 2008, because for me a house without a pet is not a home, but our garden-less flat wasn’t the best environment for housing a cat permanently. Fostering involves taking cats into your home and looking after them until they are ready to be re-homed. Sometimes the cats that we looked after were sick. Sometimes they were young or vulnerable, and needed some confidence-building. On one occasion we gave sanctuary to a creature who had no idea how to behave around human beings at all (see Snowball below). During our five years of fostering we looked after nearly 80 cats, and learned a lot about non-attachment, about how every cat is different, and how tolerant it was possible to be in the face of feline bodily fluids. We also developed a clear idea of the kind of cat that we’d want to adopt when we eventually had a house with some outside space (and at this point the Universe gave a little chortle). So, here, in no particular order, are some of the cats that were in our care, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months.

Billy

Billy

Billy had suffered a horrible abscess on his head through fighting with another cat – he was a harem-scarum tomcat, a real bruiser. But after being neutered he settled down into home life and would head-butt you so hard when he wanted to be stroked that woe betide your best clothes if you happened to have a mug of tea in your hand. We developed a love for these big male ex-strays, who were so full of character and seemed to want to make the most of their new environment. We were sure that this was the kind of cat that we would eventually adopt.

Snowball

Snowball

Snowball was the most beautiful and most acrobatic cat that we ever fostered. He was pure white, deaf and lethal. If you ventured downstairs in your dressing gown he would pounce from behind cover and rip your bare legs with his needle-sharp claws. As he couldn’t hear your screams he presumably wondered why your mouth was opening and closing while you tried to prise him off. I still bear the scars from making the mistake of reaching out to pet him when he snuggled up next to me on the sofa. We worked with an animal behaviourist to try to reduce his ‘boredom aggression’, but no amount of tiring him out by playing with him would completely eliminate his bad behaviour. Eventually he was adopted, with full disclosure, by a man who didn’t mind wearing Wellington boots over his pyjamas in the morning, which just goes to show that there’s an owner out there for every cat if you wait long enough. When we waved Snowball goodbye it was with tears of relief rather than the usual sadness. I later heard that Snowball had taken to wandering, and was regularly retrieved from locations more than 2 postcodes away from where he lived. I doubt that he made old bones, but I don’t doubt that he lived his life as a semi-wild animal in just the way he chose.

Colette

Colette

Little Colette was rescued from a house fire – in fact the cat carrier in which she was saved was melted like a Salvador Dali painting. She smelled of smoke for days, and also had a brutal flea infection. She made a quick recovery, however, and was soon off to her new home, where hopefully they’d made sure the wiring wasn’t a death-trap.

Felix

Felix

Felix came to us with his little sister Irene, and he was an unmitigated show-stealer. Whenever there was something interesting going on, he was there, and poor Irene was relegated to the sidelines. If she was being stroked, he would barge his way in. If you put down 2 dishes of food, he wanted both of them. It was decided to re-home them separately, and you never saw a happier cat than Irene when her brother went off to his new home.

Galaxy

Galaxy

Galaxy came to us with a terrible throat lesions, an allergic reaction to his vaccinations and a general air of depression. Mother cats who are not vaccinated can pass calicivirus onto their kittens, which leaves them with a lifelong tendency to throat and mouth inflammation. Galaxy’s throat was so painful that there was some talk of putting him to sleep if the situation didn’t improve, and so we spoilt him horribly. He slept on the bed, in spite of his snoring. He got all the best food. We put up with his outrageous flatulence. And, lo and behold, he gradually improved, and was finally (after a year) re-homed with a wonderful lady who gave him venison and wild boar at Christmas, and didn’t mind him sleeping in her potted plants on the patio. He lived for another five years, and was so cherished that he frequently featured on his owner’s Christmas cards.

Honey

Honey

Honey was a most unfortunate-looking cat. She was as round as a beach ball and had a most disapproving expression (not helped by her moustache). However, she was an affectionate cat, and would sit beside you, purring like an idling engine. If you didn’t stroke her, she would reach out with one paw and place it on your arm until you produced the desired caresses. If they stopped, she would pause for a moment and then apologetically reach out again. Eventually she found a home with someone who could see past her unfortunate looks to the characterful creature beneath.

Mocha

Mocha (aka Fat Boy)

Latte

Latte

Mocha and Latte were described to us by the people at the cat shelter as ‘the Cappuccino Kits’ but they arrived as two lively adolescent lunks, with all the social graces of a troop of teddy boys. One afternoon, Latte decided to run up our full-length sitting room curtains, and, before I could stop him, Mocha tried to do the same. Unfortunately, Mocha was twice the weight of Latte and so the entire curtain rail, complete with an enormous chunk of plaster, came out of the wall, leaving a cloud of dust. Suffice to say that they were both in hiding for at least five minutes before they ventured out to inspect the damage.

Lee

Lee

Mork

Mork

And talking of adolescent lunks, Mork and Lee were our two first teenagers, and were a whole heap of trouble. Lee was forever jumping out of open windows, hiding on the top of bookcases and, on one occasion, getting into the washing machine.

Aaargh! Don't try this at home...Lee in the washing machine.

Aaargh! Don’t try this at home…Lee in the washing machine.

Mork was the most affectionate cat we ever had, and the first that would sit on your shoulder while you went about your housework (though he never did learn how to wash up or do anything useful). Mork and Lee were the first cats that we truly fell in love with, and we were heartbroken when they eventually found a wonderful new home. It’s safe to say that we were careful about not becoming too attached in future.

Tabby Kit

Tabby Kit

And this is Tabby, a lynx in miniature. Look at the size of those paws! He grew to be enormous, and was the gentlest kitten we ever looked after, happy to lie in your arms like a baby.

Rosa

Rosa

Rosa and the family

Rosa and the family

Mostly White

Mostly White

Stripey Tail

Stripey Tail

Rosa was the only cat who gave birth to her kittens in our house. And what an event it was! We had prepared several places for the big event, but of course she had her babies squeezed between the bookshelf and the radiator, on the 4th November. On the 5th November there was a Guy Fawkes party in the street, with deafening explosions and shouting and general carry-on, but she stayed firm despite it all. When the kittens first came out from their hiding place after a few weeks, she spent a lot of time trying to corrall them by tapping them with her front feet, like a footballer trying to dribble the ball, but eventually she gave up and let them start to explore. We felt like proud parents, and were most indignant when the shelter folk described them as ‘long-bodied and short-legged’. Harrumph!

Stripey Tail emerging for the first time

Stripey Tail emerging for the first time

Seymour

Seymour

Seymour was another big tom-cat, but he had a condition called Horner’s Syndrome, a condition which makes one eye droop, and is often related to lesions of the nervous system. Hence, he wasn’t expected to have a long life. He spent his first day with us hiding in his covered litter-tray, and it was only after I reached in to stroke him and he started to purr that I realised that he was just frightened and confused. He was always very careful with the many flights of stairs in the flat, and I’m sure that he couldn’t focus properly. As is often the case with the most damaged of cats he was very easy to love, and I was very happy when he was re-homed by someone who knew that his prognosis wasn’t good, but wanted to make his life as happy as it could be.

Which brings me on to Rosie.

Rosie

Rosie

We looked after Rosie when her owners went away on holiday. She was a cat with quite severe disabilities – she couldn’t stand up, and had to be helped to her litter tray a couple of times a day. She would always call and let you know when she wanted to go, which was generally at the human-friendly times of 8.00 am and 6.00 pm. She was a very perky cat, interested in everything that was going on, and loved to sit on the sofa next to you, or to be picked up for a cuddle. She also loved other cats, but they generally knew that there was something wrong with her, and so would avoid her. Until, that is, her owner adopted another little cat who had been through the most horrific abuse I’d ever heard of. He loved Rosie on sight, and would cuddle up with her in her basket – maybe she reminded him of his mother, or maybe he just recognised another cat that wasn’t able to deal with the world around her on her own. At any rate, the two of them were a comfort to one another throughout their lives.

So, dear readers, having read this far, what do you think happened when we finally decided to adopt? Was it a big tough tomcat, full of personality and affection?

Umm, no.

Our last two foster cats were a brother and sister: a big tough tom, and an extremely shy little female cat. The big tough tom was adopted out to Gerrard’s Cross (the richest area in the UK by the way), to a man who owned a stable full of show jumpers, a wood, a stream, and who didn’t mind if his cat wanted to sleep on the bed. This just left the female, who, up to then, had spent her whole time hiding behind the sofa.

John and I wondered who, on earth, would ever adopt a cat who never showed herself. The months went on. Nobody wanted a very ordinary little black and white scaredy cat. And yet, we’d started to notice that she wasn’t such a scaredy cat any more. She liked to be brushed, for just a minute or so at first. Eventually, she would demand to be brushed, and complain when you stopped.

Then, she started to jump on the bed when we were reading at night.The remarkable thing was that she would jump off as soon as we put the lights out, and would never come into the bedroom until she heard us talking.

And finally, she had no interest at all in going out into the garden. In the living room, she would hunt scraps of tissue paper, foil wrappers and invisible microbes, but she was quite content to watch the birds from a window-sill.

We stopped thinking about her in terms of ‘who else will adopt this cat if we don’t?’ and started to realise that, for us, she was ideal. She wouldn’t hunt and kill the creatures in my garden. She respected our sleep time. She didn’t have any strange problems with food. She did rip the sofa to shreds, but then it was old anyway.

So, Gentle Reader, we adopted her, and put away all notions of the cats that we thought we wanted, in favour of the one that we actually did. She is seven years old this year, and gets more outgoing and friendly every day.

Every animal has a personality. If we can understand this with our pets, I wonder why we find it so hard to acknowledge that wild animals might be the same?

Willow. The perfect cat.

Willow. The perfect cat.