David mentioned to me the other day that I had broken one the cardinal sins of the internet, in that I had mentioned my cats in a post and had not provided pictures of them.
I introduced Black Momma and Touriga in my last post. These are the matriarchs of the tribe. Next in seniority is Fleabag. Fleabag holds a special place in my heart. His mother Touriga sought sanctuary in the house after a particularly loud and vicious fight during my first weeks here. She arrived meowing on the doorstep with this tiny little scrap of a kitten audibly begging to be let in.
He is called Fleabag for the obvious reason — he scrubbed up well — but the name stuck. Fleabag has one remarkable feature — he has different coloured eyes — one is green one is blue.
He also has a story to tell. At the age of about six months he disappeared. He just vanished one day and we thought he had fallen foul of one of the natural predators that live here. 6 months later were passing a neighbours farm and I saw this ginger and white cat and I remarked it looked like Fleabag. We stopped the car, got out and lo and behold he had different coloured eyes and answered to his name when called. Poor Fleabag, he had obviously been living rough for six months, his growth was stunted, fur a mess and more fleas. After house nursing and house living he has fully recovered. His physique will always be different because of how he had to live for those lost months.
Next is Shadow another of Tourigas bloodline. He is about six months older than Fleabag and very protective of him. Fleabag on the left — Shadow on the right:
Two more of Tourigas are next — brother and sister — Salt and Pepper. Salt is a very soft cuddly and eats everything he can get his paws on. He very much takes after Tourigas brother who was very much a lap cat. Pepper is very flighty and not nearly so social. Salt is the ginger at the back – Pepper is the one on the right at the back – Kitty at front is Fizzball who we lost to poisoning last month.
Last, but by no means least, is Lil Miss Infinity aka Lil Madam. She is technically the only house cat. Her story is quite special too. She came into our lives last September.
I was looking for handfasting ribbons when my search took me to the narrow backstreets in the local town and a small shop which had been owned by the same old lady for nearly 50 years.
While we were rolling up yards of ribbons this beautiful Burmese cat walked out and started weaving in and out of our legs and purring wildly. This caused quite a commotion between the old lady and her daughter with the old lady vanishing out of the shop into her house.
Several minutes later, she returned with a miniscule black kitten that she placed onto the counter where I was rolling up ribbons. I put out my hands to stroke her and she promptly climbed up into them, purring loudly she then proceeded to go to sleep against me. More commotion ensued. Mr P then translated to me. The mother cat always chooses the owners for her kittens — apparently I was the chosen one — would I please accept the kitten?
I double checked with Mr P using my eyes — Yes? No? — given we had quite a houseful of them at the time; he nodded back. I gracefully accept the offer of the kitten in broken Portuguese too much toothy smiling and grins from the ladies of the house and agree to return in two weeks’ time when the kitten is weaned. We returned to pick her up at the appointed time and offered candy for the adults and pocket-money for the granddaughter as is the Portuguese custom.
We have so much fun with her — she is very “precious” in temperament and has quite a haughty disposition. She is a real mischief and very, very curious which gets her into lots of trouble. Here she is reluctantly sharing THE box with Fleabag!
