No intention of being left out in the cold!

We can always tell when winter is on its way (like today).  Suddenly the house is full of animals.

On the bed still warm from us leaving it!

On the settee in direct line of the fan heater

On the dining chairs by the central heating radiator

On the floor in the middle of the room - just for the hell of it!

Just hope they leave room somewhere for us!

Things that go thump in the night

We don’t know where she came from.  We’d neither seen nor heard of her before her entrance.  Was she one of “er upstairs” cast offs?  Might have been.  At the time “er upstairs” was sporting a full tum as was her wont, and inclined to abandoning the previous litter to their fate, so she may have been discarded but I honestly have no idea.   A neighbour found her (knowing her, probably heard her first, she’s not backwards in coming forward where complaints are concerned) by the side of the road outside his house.  My neighbours are far too polite to say anything but I get the feeling they probably think of me as “that crazy English woman and her animals” so I suspect I was his first port of call when he found her.  He simply called my name and when I went out to greet him handed this little ball of fur over the gate.  

I took her and put her on my arm and to my amazement, she immediately leant back with her full weight, and began to purr.  Like she belonged. Not even slightly scared as you’d expect a wild kitten to be, but this one it turned out, isn’t a scaredy cat.  Vito who had followed me to the gate, sighed, raised his eyes to Heaven and walked back into the house.  Another sign she belonged, or maybe of Vito saving time by giving up before he had to give in.   She’s been with us ever since.

If you are wondering why I call her Thumper, that’s because you have never heard her make her way downstairs.  Delicate this one is not.  Where Chili and “er upstairs” could gyrate on a pinhead, or dance on a moon beam, this one  … thumps, and when she arrives there’s no mistaking she’s arrived. 

Sometimes at night, she jumps on the bed and throws herself (with real abandon) on my legs as though they belong to her and I’m just keeping them as a favour for her.  There’s nothing subtle about Thumper.  If she wants me to get up to feed her at 4 a.m., she just head bangs me, and I mean head bangs me!  A real full frontal attack guaranteed to make you start the day with a headache.  But she’s also an affectionate creature, and purrs like a steam engine as she nestles up to you for a cuddle.  She’s also tough.  Chili gave her hell for at least six months before she allowed her any peace at all (now they go everywhere together),

and she is a fierce defender of her territory.  Ask “er upstairs” who lives in terror of her and Chili.

No matter how nasty a passing stray is, she’s ready to see them off at a moment’s notice. 

She also, as you can see, grew up to be as beautiful as my other girls. 

One swallow doesn’t make a summer

For years now we have had a family of swallows that arrives late April as the welcome harbingers of summer. They build their nests in our underground communal garage, every year their number increasing, and more nests join the old along the pipes and stuck precariously on the walls. 

  I absolutely love the swallows, in fact I think all of us who share the garage do. (I suspect the cats are quite partial to them too).  They make the direst mess on the floor, and the pipes are covered in poo where their little nests rest, but for sheer grace, and death-defying dives they are splendid to watch.  And death-defying divers they are!  How they all frantically dip and swoop in over the cars as we drive down the ramp and into the garage.  It’s like being at Pearl Harbour when the Japanese attacked.  They go absolutely berserk, and then as you get out of the car they rush round in circles and then  out the gate trying to persuade you to leave the garage (like you were planning to stay there all day anyway!).   Once their brood has left the nest they perch on the telephone lines. Now and again there are causalities. Either a baby bird falls out of the nest and doesn’t survive, or falls and gets under the wheels of a car, or into the clutches of a cat.  This year though we’ve had an unusual drama to contend with.  Driving into the garage the other day I saw ahead of me a small dark heap in the middle of the garage floor.  Having parked the car I walked closer to investigate and was horrified to see this.  

I couldn’t understand why the entire load of fledglings was crowded together in the centre of the garage. Then looking up I understood why.  Their nest, which has been used for many years had crumbled under their weight and broken, and they had obviously tumbled out. 

Meanwhile the entire adult community of swallows was going crazy, flapping noisily around the garage to distract my attention, and as I stepped away, now and then dipping in to feed one of the youngsters. Our neighbours all have large cars, and the thought of them all getting squashed was to much to bear, so I and one of my neighbours tried to persuade them into a box so we could move them to a relatively safe corner of the garage.  Instead they all panicked and fled, two managing to take off and fly away, the other three to opposite corners of the garage.  However we decided that at least they were out of harm’s way for the time being and left them for the adults to round up and calm down. The next day the clever adults had shepherded the little ones behind a box by the wall.  A day later, another (unknown) neighbour had installed them into an open box on the wall and the adults were still caring for them.  This morning just two remain in the box, looking in good health as the adults continue to feed them.

 I just hope the cats don't find them.  Meanwhile the rest are now in position on the telephone lines.

Once the little ones can fend for themselves, they will sit outside on the lines, and stay there for the rest of the summer.  Then one day we'll return home from somewhere at the beginning of September and suddenly realise with a sinking heart they aren’t there anymore and winter is coming L