Kirsty the garden cat.

Below is an article I wrote for the book produced by NineLives called Cat Tails wherein owners of adopted strays put their experiences to encourage others. ~
It was written before we decided to care for Kirsty.

Greek cats
2017


We were not going to have any cats in Greece, certainly not for a while until we were properly settled. We needed the freedom to come and go at will.Our two elderly U.K. cats had gone to a daughter and my father-in-law as we thought they would have found adjusting to life here, tough.
The freedom lasted all of 5 months. A friend who rescued stray dogs had found a year old female cat, injured, by the side of the road. She had nursed her back to health but couldn't keep her.We were invited round for a meal and somehow found ourselves cat owners once more. Sparkle settled into our small first-floor apartment well. She was feisty, and bossy.At the end of our first year here, we moved to a much bigger house by the sea with a large garden. Despite the obvious attractions, Sparkle started to get fat and lazy so we decided she needed a companion.This was our first interaction with NineLives. Shortly thereafter, a small, ugly, slightly singed calico kitten was delivered - she had been found in a car engine. We honoured her affinity to cars by naming her Chassis and, after a very short time, Chassis and Sparkle were firm friends and play-fighters.
Sadly, the following year, Sparkle ingested poison , and died. We don't think it was deliberate as it was at the time of year when gardeners were in bug-killing, spraying mode and many are careless and thoughtless in how this impacts on animals.
Meanwhile, Chassis, who was , and is, small and thin, had become the scourge of the neighbourhood cats, seeing off any who dared to set foot in 'her' garden and, embarrassingly, turned to crime. " Klepto Kitty" as we now called her, raided the surrounding balconies to bring us items such as a slipper, a baby's bib, a CD, and countless other objects. Once, amazingly, a huge beach towel which she had managed to drag over 2 fences!

Maybe a kitten would distract her and calm her down?

NineLives obliged again. Spiro was a tiny little black kitten who had been released from a car engine, only to escape his captors and flee into the Zoological gardens, which were frequented by packs of dogs. His rescuers returned the following day, hoping to find him. He was lying on the grass with flies hovering and was thought to be dead, but, he had a pulse and the vet could find nothing obvious wrong with him. He was handed to us, a quivering little ball of fur with a thick matted patch of fur on his back. As I gently rubbed a little warm olive oil into the matted bit, the whole patch fell off to reveal a dog bite! In later months, we discovered that whenever he was startled or terrified, he would faint. I guess this is what saved his life as the dog must have assumed he was dead, and lost interest. Spiro was intensely nervous, he lived in my pocket and when too big to climb in, would bury his head in there. He loved to have his eyes covered. Chassis had no use for, or interest in, such a weak specimen.

A fortnight after Spiro arrived, I was awoken early one morning by the sound of a kitten crying. In the middle of the adjoining field was a small black kitten around 6 weeks of age, yelling it's head off. When I went to investigate, he disappeared inside an inpenetrable thorn thicket. His mother was dead, somewhere inside there. At various times over the next couple of days, I would climb the wall into the field and sit patiently next to the thorns, trying to lure him out with food but he was too scared of me .After some thought, I placed a cat carrier with some tuna inside on the other side of the wall, hid behind the wall with a long stick and when kitten entered the box, I leaned over and pushed the carrier door shut with the stick, climbed the wall and retrieved them. I made him comfortable on the first floor balcony, keeping him away from our other cats, as he was obviously sick, eyes half closed, vomiting worms, until we could take him to the vet the following day. Hearing a commotion, I was just in time to see a large ginger cat disappearing down the tree next to the balcony with kitten hanging from it's mouth! He tenderly put it down in the adjoining field whereupon it scuttled back into the thorn bush. I later learned from Effie, who knows the genealogy of every local cat, that the ginger cat was his uncle. Next day, I had to rescue him all over again! We had to keep him in isolation for 3 weeks in the spare room - vet's orders - then we slowly introduced him to Spiro and they became good friends. We named him Cosmo. He grew fat and round while Spiro remained thin and nervous and inclined to over groom.

Sophia came next, via a friend - another car engine cat. She had enormous ears and was utterly bonkers but unfortunately she got too close to a pack of dogs.

She was followed by yet another NineLives kitten, a gorgeous ginger girl whom we named Celeste. A little later we saw an appeal for a home for yet another black kitten. He had been hit by a car and suffered brain damage. His head was permanently cocked to one side and one of his back legs turned inward. Sotiris was shunned by our cats and the local ones because he was weird until a neighbour brought home a kitten who attached himself to Sotiris. When, a year later, the kitten was run over, Sotiris was devastated and mourned him loudly, sitting under the neighbour's window and calling for his friend. It was heartbreaking. Because of his head injury, he sometimes had fits but these increased with his distress. Again, it was NineLIves to the rescue we adopted Vasilli, a sweet-natured little boy, a few months old, to console Sotiris. Sadly, the fits became worse and he died…

So, here we are, a 4 cat family again.. Chassis AKA Klepto-Kitty, is now 11 years old, still extremely feisty and really only loves my husband, I am merely tolerated. Cosmo, the orphan cat from the field, is 9 now, a big black bonny boy. He is asthmatic and has slowed down a lot but has the lovliest disposition and craves tummy tickles. Celeste, 5 now, is huge, though she prefers the term 'big-boned', she is very pretty and affectionate and rather lazy. Spiro, the nervous cat died of kidney cancer when he was 8, having had a happy and protected life with us. Vasilli is around 14 months of age and an absolute delight .Not bad for people who were not going to get tied down by cats again.
Huge thanks to NineLives and the tireless work they do.

We seem to have acquired another outside garden cat. Kirsty, who like Chassis, is fierce and fearless, keeps bringing another cat along even letting it share her food. After a couple of weeks of fruitlessly shooing it away, we have capitulated. He is ginger with a big bushy tail, like a fox, and his name is Messi....

Yes, I know, but we tried several names out on him, Sam jokingly shouted 'Messi" and the cat lifted his head and came running. He has the same colouring as Harry Kane but he didn't seem to respond to Harry...

sleepy cats in the heat. Couldn't find Chassis, she sneers when I try to take her photograph and was hiding in the garden.

A very contented bevy of pusscats ..