Here’s an update on my new friends: Cats from that Red Other’s Alentejo Shed!
Nimbus — he is all legs and climbing all over the place.
Continue reading → The Bramble Diaries: Alentejo Shed Kittens Update
I awaken each morning to the soft early light of the rising sun as it filters through the window shutters directly onto my pillow. Its arrival means it is time to rise and shine — no alarm clocks needed here.
This has been specifically written for cats and their owners, a lot of the information will apply to dogs and their owners as well. If your cat is special to you, is a pedigree cat, or has unusual or special markings please, get it chipped. In Portugal this will cost between twenty-five and fifty euros and can be done by most vets. These cats have a high risk of being stolen.
In the dim and distant past when I first had a job, I used to get a lift to work with a friend. In return I would look after their family animals while they were away on holiday. This meant feeding and mucking out three or four rabbits and four guinea pigs which lived in a huge wooden hutch in the garden. He would ruefully remark to me at times that he wished the animals he had bought to teach the children about life and death would actually oblige. They must have had the longest living rabbits and guinea pigs I have known.
Fast forward thirty five years and the cats of my lap in the Alentejo shed are giving me a prime example.
Continue reading → The Harsh Realities of the Circle of Life
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.
The attitudes toward domestic animals in rural Portugal was one of the first, and the hardest, lessons I had to learn on arrival here. In Portugal, with the exception of a few pampered pooches and overindulged kitties in the cities, most animals the western world consider to be domestic animals are, in fact, considered working animals and are treated as such.
Continue reading → Attitudes to Domestic Animals in Rural Portugal
For economic reasons, I decided I was not going to ship my once state of the art gaming computer to Portugal when I moved. “The Beast,” as she was known, would have almost doubled my shipping costs by the time all the relevant insurances had been applied. It was simply not worth it.
She was sold to friend with whom I hear she is very happy.
This meant that when I got here I shared a computer with Mr P. As anyone knows, sharing a computer is a delicate affair at the best of times and although we did not come to blows or even utter a cross word it soon became apparent that we needed another computer.
Continue reading → The Curious Case of the Missing “C” and Why David Has to Edit My Punctuation
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