Reflecting on our Mallorcan Cats

Two of our glaring of cats (now only four) celebrated their birthday yesterday. When I say celebrated, these felines knew nothing about becoming eleven years old. But such anniversaries are always a time for reflecting on the Mallorcan cats that have been a part of our lives here.

Nibbles and Sweetie are the last two remaining cats from Jetta’s second litter of five kittens, born in July 2011. Although probably not a year old at the time, feral Jetta had already had four kittens in March the same year. This little, black beauty was popular with the local ‘boys’; getting her spayed – after some effort to catch her – ensured her petite body didn’t endure another pregnancy.

Jetta stayed with us until the little ones became too demanding ; one day, she didn’t come back at mealtime. We couldn’t find her and concluded she’d just had enough of being mama to a bunch of boisterous kittens. These little mites became our responsibility.

Jetta’s legacy was nine assorted kittens – all adorable. One little one lost her life tragically when she jumped out of a tree straight into the path of a neighbour’s car. Brownie is buried at the end of our field, just yards from where she was born. Some of the kittens stayed with us for several years and for a long time we had five of the siblings living on our finca, having meals twice a day and any necessary visits to our vet in Manacor. We had them all neutered, of course.

Goodbye to Two

It was heartbreaking when Beamer and Chico – on separate occasions – went off and didn’t return. Beamer, in particular, had suffered a horrible experience a few years before and had since spent most of his time around our finca. The Boss and I searched for these two cats but never saw either of them again.

Sweetie – the tortoiseshell runt of the second litter – had always been skittish and unapproachable. The only female, her territory was on the neighbouring finca. However, she returned to us for meals, access to water, and some bonding time with her brothers Beamer and Dusty.

After Chico left, Sweetie changed. She became friendlier, happy to be stroked, and will occasionally allow me to pick her up for a brief cuddle. Chico had also been shy with us but if a strange cat came onto the finca, he was the first to see it off. We realised he’d probably bullied Sweetie, because her change in nature coincided with his departure. These days, this dainty little puss is more relaxed and spends a lot of time on our finca. She’s even learnt to tolerate Shorty and Pip – who are not siblings – and over whom she has the benefit of seniority.

Adiós Dusty

It’s taken me a long time to be able to write about the loss of our beloved, blue-eyed Dusty in May this year. He’d had a skin cancer on his nose, which was treated with electro-chemotherapy at a specialist clinic in Palma in January 2021.

When it was obvious that the cancer had returned this spring and was eating into his nose, we hoped further treatment would be possible. I’d already obtained the syringe of sedative we’d need to get him into the cat carrier and car (which he hated) to go to the vet’s, but couldn’t get near him to administer the injection.

Then, one Sunday when The Boss and I were eating lunch at the table down in our field, Dusty appeared and started rubbing his cheek against my leg. He hadn’t done this for some time and had stopped exchanging nose-rub greetings with his siblings. I bent down to stroke him, then picked him up. He didn’t struggle at all. It was as though he were telling me he was ready for his final trip.

I took him into the house while The Boss fetched the cat carrier and prepared for us to leave for the vet’s. Dusty reclined on the library floor, as we stroked him and told him all the things that pet owners do at such a poignant moment. After I’d injected the sedative, we continued to stroke him until he was asleep and we could get him into the cat carrier. Sadly, further treatment wasn’t possible. We stayed with him at the vet’s until the last beat of his heart, then brought him home.

Dusty had a favourite shady spot at the end of our field, under an overhanging shrub. That same spot – very close to where he was born in March 2011 – is now his final resting place. RIP Dusty.

©Jan Edwards 2022

Cat Chat in Mallorca on International Cat Day

Is it time to wake up?

International Cat Day is today, August the 8th. And since we became international by moving to rural Mallorca, we’ve had plenty of cats in our lives.

Seventeen feral or homeless felines have called our finca home over the years we’ve lived here. We currently have Dusty, Shorty, Nibbles, Sweetie (all born on the finca and now ten years old), and Pip. Pip arrived as a tiny kitten – dumped, we believe – and inveigled her way into our home after our own cat Minstral died.

We’ve taken responsibility for each of the cats that have spent time around the place. As a result, we’ve named them, fed them, looked after their welfare, and neutered them (not personally, you understand). In return, they keep the rural rodent population away from our house. Believe me, it’s a good deal.

Find Yourself a Feline

We’re not running a cat refuge here, although at times we feel as though we are. However, there are plenty of people in Mallorca who look after stray and unwanted cats and kittens. On International Cat Day, I salute their dedication. If you’re on the island and would like to adopt or event foster a feline, I’ve posted some links below to a few of the animal sanctuaries in Mallorca. All of them are always grateful for donations towards their costs; Eden Sanctuary especially needs urgent financial assistance as the property owner is selling the land Eden Sanctuary has been renting.

Refugio Marylou

This particular cat refuge is a figment of my imagination and plays a major part in my debut novel. Write about what you know, they say. Well, Daughter of Deià features a radio presenter, cats, and Mallorca. I think I’ve ticked the ‘write what you know’ box.

Daughter of Deià will be published in early September. If you’re not a subscriber to this blog, click the follow button for updates and further news.

Real Cat Refuges in Mallorca

Some of the below also care for other unwanted animals.

Feliz Animal, Andratx

Amics Puigpunyent, Galilea

Cat Protection Pollensa

Forever Home Cat Sanctuary

Eden Sanctuary

Moixos de Son Talent, Manacor (Facebook only),

SOS Animal Mallorca, Calvià

Kats Karma (rescues and sends street cats to Germany)

©Jan Edwards 2021

Jet Planes About to Return to Mallorca

Mallorca’s tourism is about to be reactivated. We’re nearly at the end of Spain’s State of Alarm, which began on March 14th and ends on June 21st. Today, the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced that the country’s borders would reopen that day to Schengen countries (although Portugal has asked to retain the original planned date of July 1st).

Tomorrow, two planes from Frankfurt and Düsseldorf will land at Palma de Mallorca’s airport and disgorge German tourists (and owners of second homes here). These are the first arrivals for what was planned to be a two-week pilot scheme to test Covid-19 protocols. That’s now become a one-week pilot, as the border reopening date has been brought forward.

One more week to go then, until we reach ‘new normality’. We still don’t know when family and friends from the UK will be able to travel here – or, more precisely, when the requirement for quarantine in the UK will end, making it more likely that people will consider coming for a holiday.

Day-to-day life in rural Mallorca hasn’t been too different from life as it was before the pandemic. It’s always quiet where we live, but the absence of planes flying over the valley has been noticeable. An hour or so ago, as we sat outside reading on this warm Sunday afternoon, a plane flew over – such a rare sound now that we immediately looked up from our books and commented on it.

In Other News…

The biggest changes have been in our cat ‘glaring’ (collective word for cats, if you didn’t know). In the middle of April, Chico – one of the cats we’ve looked after – disappeared. He was nine years old and had always stayed close to the house – although he was nervous of humans (even the two who had fed him twice a day since he was a kitten). We haven’t seen him again and try not to think about why.

Sweetie has discovered one of the outdoor sofas

His departure has resulted in an interesting change in the cat colony dynamics. Since Chico left, Sweetie – the only outdoor female (we had her sterilized as soon as she was old enough) – has been spending more time on our finca with her other siblings (and Shorty, who’s not related).

Sweetie’s always had her own territory on the holiday-home finca of friends a short distance from our home. Whenever she was hungry she would walk down the lane and come to the cat buffet at our place. Usually she came when the others weren’t around, eating what she wanted, then scurrying back to her territory.

Recently, Sweetie has been spending a lot of time on our finca and now eats with her remaining siblings twice a day. Her character has changed too: she’s no longer nervous of us and will even sit outside the front door waiting for us to go outside. I’ve also managed to pick her up for the briefest of cuddles without suffering a facial-disfiguring attack. Yesterday, we saw the biggest change in this cute little cat: after dinner eaten on the front terrace, I walked to the back of the house and found Sweetie sitting on one of our garden sofas. This would have been unthinkable a few months ago.

We never noticed any antagonism between Chico and his sister Sweetie but it seems too much of a coincidence that, since he left, she has become a different – and much more relaxed – cat. Perhaps it’s a case of every cloud has a silver lining…

Jan Edwards ©2020

Lockdown Log in Mallorca – Day 33

Wisteria in bloom at Alfabia Gardens (photographed in a previous year). A spring sight that few will see this year.

Really? Day 33? I would never have imagined spending such a long time at home and going out only once in all that time. But here we are, Easter already over, and halfway through April. With the lockdown in Spain likely to be extended to almost the middle of May, this will surely be known as The Lost Spring.

We have a list of jobs to done around the finca and I’m itching to get on with them, so that there’s something visual that we can look at and say, that’s what we did during the lockdown. But Spanish tax returns loom and The Boss is mired in paperwork and spreadsheets. Must start gathering my own together soon.

Meanwhile, I’ve been making impressive (for me) strides with The Novel. Well, it was about time, as I had the idea for the story when I moved here in 2004. Much has changed from the original storyline, but I think that the long gestation period has been beneficial – and the writing of it takes me temporarily into a world where there’s no COVID-19.

By this evening, I should have reached 51,000 words. Only another 30k or so for that first draft to be done. Say it quickly enough and it doesn’t sound too bad.

A New Chapter for Chico?

People who know me may guess that cats feature in the story. And one of our cats – Chico – features in this latest blog post. And sadly it’s not good news: Chico has been missing for a week.

Chico was one of the second litter of ferals born to Jetta in July 2011 and, unlike his siblings, he’s always been wary of us (and any other humans). We’ve never done anything to hurt or scare him (except take him to be neutered when he was a kitten and old enough), but he’s always the one who waits at a safe distance until we’ve walked away from putting his food out. He’s also nervous of having his photo taken and, because of that, we have few photos of him.

Yet, he’s also been happy to sit in our dining room window recess, as long as we’ve ignored him, and spent most of the daytime snoozing somewhere within sight of the house.

We have no idea why he’s so nervous around people but have witnessed that, of all the cats, he is the one who’ll chase any ‘outsider’ felines who dare to intrude on his (shared) territory. Bravery lurks within.

Plenty of Questions; No Answers

It is nigh on impossible to look for a lost cat in open countryside – especially as we’re in lockdown and not allowed to go out of our property except for shopping etc. Losing a cat, in whatever way, is always upsetting. What’s happened? Are they lying injured or sick somewhere? Have they found a new home? Too many questions and no answers. All we can hope is that he’s safe and well on his solo adventure.

Here’s a coincidence: Chico’s departure was exactly two years ago to the day that our beautiful Beamer – the alpha male of the glaring – disappeared. Beamer was adored (visibly) by his siblings (and us). He enjoyed being around us when we were outdoors and loved to be fussed. But he still disappeared. As has Chico.

Could it be something to do with the arrival of spring? A touch of wanderlust inspired by the rebirth of Nature? For Chico, it’s not so much The Lost Spring, as lost in spring.

Be brave, Chico, and come back one day if you can.

Jan Edwards ©2020

Nibbles is Nibbled Again

Meet Nibbles. He’s one of the second litter of cats born to Jetta (a feral), in the old ruined house just over the wall at the end of our finca’s field. He is now eight years old and – like his remaining siblings – still comes to us twice a day for food.

There’s a touch of the sabre-toothed tiger about Nibbles…

When the kittens were born at the end of March 2011, we didn’t intend to give them names. We expected they would go off their own separate ways once they were weaned. My dad and Uncle Ray were fortunate to be staying here for a spring holiday when Jetta decided to bring her first kittens up to the house. They were just the cutest things and full of mischief and made that family holiday particularly memorable.

“That one has to be called Dusty,” Dad said, taking photos as the playful kitties performed their antics around a flowerpot on the front terrace. “With those eyes, he looks like Dusty Springfield.”

Before you could say Son of a Preacher Man, we’d named all of Jetta’s first litter: Dusty, Beamer, Bear, and Brownie.

We tried to catch Jetta and take her to be spayed, but the sleek black feral cat proved to be as slippery as fallen leaves on a pavement after heavy rain (and, boy, we had a lot of that in Mallorca on Tuesday night). A local tom cat had better luck catching her: before long she was pregnant again. And this time, she had five kittens – one of which was Nibbles. You’ll be relieved to learn that we did manage to catch her this time; I think she was too exhausted by her mothering duties to run away from us.

You can probably guess how Nibbles got his name. He does love a fuss and will often jump onto The Boss’s or my lap if we’re sitting outside. But when he’s had enough of being stroked, he lets us know by (sometimes) gently applying his teeth to the offending hand. These little nips remind us that, however affectionate he can be, Nibbles was born feral and is still an outdoor cat – although we had him and all the other cats neutered or spayed as soon as they were old enough.

If there’s going to be an unscheduled visit to the vet’s, it will almost certainly be with Nibbles. He seems to be one of those accident-prone cats.

A bite on the head for Nibbles

Ouch!

One day in August last year he came home with a wound on his head, looking sorry for himself. Off to the vet’s we went for treatment. We had to keep him indoors for a few days – a prospect that filled us with dread all the way home from the vet’s. How would Pip react to having another cat in the house? And how would Nibbles react to being kept indoors when he’d spent his entire life outdoors?

Somehow we got through those few days. The cats kept their distance from each other and, at night, while Pip stayed in the dining room and kitchen, Nibbles was in our large guest bathroom, with a ‘bed’, litter tray, and food and water. He entertained himself during the first night by shredding an entire roll of toilet tissue, which I’d forgotten to remove; the  bathroom looked like a snow scene the next morning. I think humans and cats were all relieved when, later that week, the vet declared him recovered enough to go out again.

And Next, a Leg Bite

Almost a year to the date later, Nibbles arrived one evening, limping. He wouldn’t allow us to examine his back leg or pick him up. We couldn’t see a wound, so we thought he’d maybe landed badly after jumping down from a tree or wall. We set up a box with a blanket in it on the terrace, with water and food bowls alongside. We hoped he’d use the chance to rest in comfort and then we’d take him to the vet’s in the morning.

Of course, Nibbles was nowhere to be seen the next day. Or the next. He didn’t come for food at the usual times. We were worried sick about him, wondering if his limp had been due to something more serious. The Boss scoured our land – even venturing down the precipitous slope into our own valley, which is an impenetrable tangle of wild vegetation. We searched daily for Nibbles but didn’t see him for almost a week.

August was a very hot month and, if he were unable to walk to the terrace for food and water, we feared that he’d be badly dehydrated. We were both subdued, imagining the worst.

Then Nibbles reappeared – just like that. I spotted him drinking from one of the water features we have around the place. “He’s back!” I yelled with excitement to The Boss, who was indoors. Nibbles limped over as though he’d never been away, looking otherwise fit and well fed. We guessed that instinct had made him avoid the blazing sun, as he couldn’t trot along at his usual food-here-I-come pace, and he’d come to eat and drink during the night.

We managed to catch him and bundle him – with care – into a cat carrier and take him to the vet’s. Nibbles was a model patient and allowed the vet to examine his leg. Verdict: another bite. More antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, pain meds and another period of convalescence.

“These cushion things are quite comfortable.” Nibbles convalesces.

It was the same routine as before: Nibbles spent the nights in the guest bathroom – after I’d removed all toilet tissue. The window shutter (persiana) was closed but we left the window itself open for fresh air, as it was so hot. The next morning, we discovered that Nibbles had completely shredded the window’s mesh mosquito screen. What a mess! Apart from this, he enjoyed his convalescence – sitting in comfort on the sofa or a chair and even watching a bit of TV one evening.

Check Out the Neck

Nibbles didn’t wait another year for his next bite. Last week, as I sat writing a page or two of my novel, The Boss called out to me from the garden: “You’d better come and look at this!”

At some point since his breakfast that day, Nibbles had sustained another bite – this time on the side of his neck. Off we all went to the vet’s again. It was like Groundhog Day.

A week later, Nibbles is back outside and has made a good recovery. Fingers crossed, he’ll stay out of trouble for the foreseeable…

Jan Edwards ©2019

Our Cats in Mallorca

Yes, we still have cats, even though you won’t have read much about them lately (although there are occasional sightings on my mallorcajan instagram page). Our feline family now numbers six and, if you’ve read about our cats in previous posts, you’ll realise we’ve lost two. It’s heartbreaking when this happens.

We were devastated in April 2018, when Beamer – the alpha male of the outdoor cats – disappeared. This beautiful big black-and-white boy went off one day and didn’t return.

The evening before he left, he was sitting on the low wall separating our back terrace from the garden and seemed to be sniffing the air. Was he curious to find out what was beyond his territory? He’d always been much loved by his siblings, who came to him for washing, approval, and sometimes a bit of play. Perhaps he’d had enough of the constant attention from them?

We’ll never know what happened to Beamer, but it was out of character for this eight-year-old cat, who spent a lot of his time close to our house. Of course, we searched for him – as far as it’s possible to look for a lost cat in what’s a natural environment of open countryside and scrub vegetation. I spent many months last year hoping he’d stroll back onto the terrace for his food one day. I was convinced he’d come back but eventually accepted that he was gone.

In late July last year we had to say goodbye to our beloved Birman, Minstral. As they say in cricket, he’d had a good innings, being twenty-one years old at the time of his demise. We’d adopted him in the UK and brought him to Mallorca with our rescue Maine Coon, Smokey – who sadly died of leukaemia in our early years here.

Minstral was on medication and diet food for the kidney problem that often affects older cats; he’d been the most chilled-out cat we’d known, but let us know when he’d had enough. Twenty-one is a good age for a cat in Mallorca and our vet hadn’t seen one of such seniority at his practice. We brought Minstral home and buried him alongside Smokey in the garden. We had him for 17 years and I miss him every day.

Had We Lost Another?

What a yawn! Those teeth are made for nibbling

Nibbles – one of Beamer’s siblings, younger by just four months – is The Boss’s favourite of our cats. Despite being of feral origins, Nibbles likes to jump onto his lap and play the affectionate card for a few minutes…before living up to his name and nibbling any body parts he can reach (usually a hand).

On his eighth birthday (July 31st), Nibbles came for dinner as usual – but limping. He wouldn’t let us examine his paw and leg, and it was too late to take him to the vet’s that night; we set up a blanket in a box under our porch and placed food and water right next to it, so he wouldn’t need to venture far.

“We’ll take him to the vet’s first thing,” The Boss said.

Nibbles might have heard us say that: in the morning he was gone. We didn’t see him again for eight days and wished we had captured him and taken him into our house for the night. For a few days, The Boss scoured the countryside for him, even venturing into the jungle that is our valley-within-a-valley for the first time in many months.

“It’s impenetrable down there,” he said when he returned, defeated, sweaty, and covered with bits of vegetation. With temperatures at the time in the high 30s, we feared that Nibbles wouldn’t survive the heat if he couldn’t at least drink. An air of sadness and helplessness hung over us.

On Thursday, August 8th, we attended a start-of-the-grape-harvest party at a local winery. It was a fun evening, which proved to be a brief distraction from thinking about Nibbles’s likely fate.

The Prodigal Puss Returns

Our cats were waiting on the terrace, as usual, for our return. They must recognise the sound of our approaching car and time their arrival to coincide with ours. The Boss will often top up their food bowls at this point and, whilst he went indoors to fetch the cat chow, I stayed outside.

One of the cats was standing on our solar-powered fountain, drinking from it. I thought it was Chico until I realised that the leg markings were those of Nibbles. He was home and, although still limping, had survived the heatwave. As we hadn’t seen him for a week, he had probably conserved his energy by limping to the terrace for food and water at night, when the heat of the day was gone. I scooped Nibbles into my arms and was holding him when The Boss emerged from the house, carrying the box of cat food.

“Look who’s back,” I said turning around to face him. We were overcome with joy at seeing this much-loved cat again – but disappointed to see that he was now walking on only three legs.

Nibbles spent the night indoors this time and, in the morning, we took him to the vet’s. He hates the car and howled all the way there and back. The vet diagnosed a bite on his leg, gave him an antibiotic injection that would last fifteen days, and prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine for us to give him each day.

He’s still indoors and has become quite the home cat – so far showing little interest in the outdoor world and plenty of liking for sitting on soft cushions and having food and water within a few paw-steps. He’s now walking on four legs, albeit still with a slight limp; by the end of this week, Nibbles should be back outdoors with his feline family. Domestic life will return to normal. As normal as it ever is when you live in rural Mallorca and have a semi-feral feline family.

Jan Edwards ©2019

What Do Cats’ Thoughts Turn to in the Mallorcan Spring?

Spring weather has finally arrived in Mallorca. The dust-generating woodburning stove (which I do love, despite the extra dusting) is now off duty until late autumn and there have been mutterings of safaris to the depths of the wardrobe for short-sleeved shirts. It pays not to be too hasty though. In England, we remember the old saying “Ne’er cast a clout ’til May be out”. Here in Spain they have something similar: “Hasta el cuaranta de mayo no te quites el sayo.”  The 40th of May takes us into June and, for sure, I won’t be wearing an overcoat in Mallorca then; we can safely assume it wasn’t an islander who came up with that pearl of wisdom.

It’s true that Mallorca’s spring didn’t get off to a promising start but, on the plus side, all the rain has resulted in an abundance of wildflowers and fields of emerald-green crops. The two main reservoirs in the Tramuntana mountains – Gorg Blau and Cúber – are also full, which is positive news ahead of the busy tourist season.

Captured on Camera

For a good few days now we’ve had plenty of sunshine and some pleasant temperatures. Yesterday we even spent some post-paella time relaxing on the beach at Muro with Mallorcan friends. I brought out my inner child by paddling in the sea with their sweet three-year-old daughter Julia and was surprised to find the water was quite a pleasant temperature.

The Boss and I ended our enjoyable Sunday by sitting on our back terrace with a glass of wine…and almost all our cats. Our furry felines seem to enjoy being with us when we’re outside during warm evenings. As most of them were born feral, we’re always touched that they stick around – even after they have had their dinner! Once darkness falls and we come indoors, we imagined that the cats reverted to their full feral status and went off on their individual ways hunting.

A lovely Polish couple has recently become our neighbours, although their finca is on the other side of a steep valley from us. They installed a security camera at their finca and sent us a still image captured from the first-night’s footage, which they thought we’d be interested to see. Recognizable by their markings, three of our black-and-white cats were visible, chilling out around the finca‘s swimming pool. At least they weren’t sipping cocktails. So much for feral behaviour!

For fellow cat fans, here are a few pictures I took last evening.

©Jan Edwards 2018

Never a Dull Moment with Pip

Never usually one to miss a meal…

It’ll be three years in September since the kitten we named Pip arrived in our lives. She’s still very much like a kitten (albeit a rather plump one): playful, inquisitive, and ready to eat anything in sight. Every day she does things to make us laugh and remind us how fortunate we are that somehow she turned up at our finca. But yesterday we feared we had lost her…

Pip when she first arrived three years ago

Cat-astrophe?

Pip seems to be a bit of a petrolhead: she loves to get into cars. One morning earlier this year she didn’t turn up for her breakfast; this was not usual Pip behaviour, as she always appears to be starving in the mornings, but we assumed she was sleeping off a busy night doing feline stuff. Some time later, The Boss called me and pointed out of the kitchen window at our car. Standing up on the driver’s seat inside, with her front paws on the side window, was Pip. The Boss had been cleaning the car out the previous evening and Pip had managed to hide herself away in it while all the doors and hatchback were open – and had spent the night trapped inside. As you may imagine, there was a little more cleaning to be done afterwards…

We’ve been super-careful ever since. If friends come to visit, or we have a delivery or tradesman calling, we’ve always made sure that Pip hasn’t somehow managed to get into their vehicle.

Chill-out Furniture Delivery; Not-so-chilled Cat Mum!

Do not disturb

Yesterday we had a delivery of some new chill-out furniture for the terrace. The two guys who brought the stuff left the large van’s back doors open while they were carrying the items from the drive to the back terrace. As well as our furniture, there were protective blankets and other stuff inside the van. It was another hot day so we assumed Pip would be asleep somewhere on our land.

It was only later, as we were having lunch outside, I remembered that we hadn’t asked the delivery men to check the back of the van for a feline squatter before they left. Had she jumped up through the open doors into the back of the van? Was she on her way to who-knows-where?  We abandoned lunch and repeatedly called out to Pip; usually she appears when she hears us (in the expectation of food). We even shook the large plastic box that contains the cats’ biscuits. Nada.

Stowaway Alert

At this point I had a mini-meltdown, imagining her trapped in the van and what would happen when the doors were opened – either back at the store or on another delivery somewhere. The consequences didn’t bear thinking about but that didn’t stop me thinking about them! I phoned the store to alert them to the possibility of a stowaway in the van and the helpful woman there rang the drivers to warn them.

Needless to say, after an afternoon of anxiety, Pip turned up later in the day for her dinner. I went outside and there she was stretched out under our car. We’ve never been as pleased to see her as we were last evening.

“What was all the fuss about, hooman?”

Cats can be such a worry sometimes … or maybe it’s just that this cat-mum worries too much about them!

©Jan Edwards 2017

Mallorcan Rural Lifestyle Suits Minstral the Birman

Regular readers of this blog about our life in rural Mallorca will know that we share the outdoor areas of our finca with seven cats that have adopted us.  But we share our indoor space – our home – with Minstral, our adorable Birman cat.

“I share my home with a couple of humans – one of whom is forever trying to take my photo.

We adopted him when he was four years old and yesterday was a bit of a landmark in Minstral’s life: it was his 20th birthday. Our vet has told us this is a surprising age for a cat on Mallorca, let alone one that is a pedigree (his is rather impressive). He’s in pretty good shape for his age – Minstral, not the vet (although he’s probably not doing too badly either); however, like many older cats, his kidney function is not what it was.

We’d love to have given Minstral a special treat to eat for his birthday but he’s on a low-protein diet designed for cats with kidney problems, so it was breakfast/lunch/dinner as usual for our much-loved senior ‘catizen’.

An official birthday photograph was deemed “a good idea” but, as anyone who has tried to photograph cats will know, they’re not always very obliging models. Curiosity means they usually come straight towards the camera to check it out. And so it was for much of yesterday. Until this…

Cat

“Why are you pointing that thing at me?”

©Jan Edwards 2017

Good News at Our Finca in Rural Mallorca

Animals can be perverse. You boast to a friend that your cat always does a certain thing: for example, you say its name and it flicks its tail; you say its name twice and it flicks its tail twice; that kind of thing. Of course, the fickle feline never obliges when you try to demonstrate this amazing feat to your friend.

So, perhaps you can guess what happened after I posted about our little cat Sweetie’s eight-day absence…. yes, she turned up last night.  Looking rather thin but otherwise apparently fine, she wriggled under our gates and came to greet her siblings, who sniffed around her as if trying to work out where she’d been (which was probably what they were doing … none of them told us). Beamer seemed particularly pleased to see her and immediately began to give her a jolly good wash.

And Sweetie was back, as she always had been before, for her breakfast this morning. She seems pleased to be back again and, thankfully, Pip has chosen to ignore her.

We’ll probably never know where she was, what she was up to, or why she didn’t come to our finca in Mallorca as usual. We’re all just pleased she’s back and unharmed.

The prodigal daughter gets a good clean-up from big brother Beamer

©Jan Edwards 2017