A terrible feeling of deja vu........
You know that feeling that not only is control slipping out of your grasp but that this has all happened before ? It's all gaining momentum, including the rate at which I am writing to record that very feeling of helplessness.
If you've been paying attention and reading recently you will have observed my descent into the role of pawn to a scheming bunch of felines (and that has most certainly happened before), how one minute I thought I had things (and them) under control and it was all quite manageable and the next I've been outwitted and over-run again and left wondering how I will ever sort things out again.
Every time I thought they had settled into any kind of pattern or routine, someone upset the apple cart or indeed the cat food bowl, and right royally. Blink and my cat food bill has doubled, blink again and several of my lot have all but moved out in disgust, blink again and there is another black one, or a small one, or one living under the sideboard, or one who has not been seen for months or...........ok, breathe. Calm.
Patch the stray is a stubborn creature even worse than her predecessor Sooty in the campo near Nerja. She sits at my feet and looks up demanding food but move one muscle towards her and still she is off, after more than two years or regular food and eyeballing sessions during which I have explained many, many times she needs to go the vets and perhaps also would like the occasional stroke and to be a proper part of the family. What happened to all her previous kittens I know not but this past year she has taken the liberty of introducing them all to the meals here and I'm at a complete loss to know how many think I am theirs or indeed whether they have other homes elsewhere since regularly timed attendance seems to be optional for sure.
I've written recently of the confusion of black cats, the unexpected appearance of a kitten in the living room who lived under the sideboard for a fortnight and whom Patch appears to have deposited with me for safe keeping, the reappearance of one of her last three who she seems to keep with her now, and the vision of a small black kitten once in a flower pot (yes really) and most recently one under the van (which may or may not be the same one. The kitten, not the van.) I had a few words with Patch about a) having had another litter during the summer, completely unnoticed by my otherwise diligent cat sitters, and more particularly about dumping one on me just like that. Although she refused to comment on whether she had alterior motives or it was by way of a compliment as I could be trusted. We've been doing a reasonable job, the next eldest and I, and Itty Bitty seemed quite happy without a full time mum or indeed any siblings, but my sympathy was wasted it seems. There is at least one sibling.
Patch has been hanging around the house and the terrace more than usual without it involving troughing large quantities of grub, and the last two in particular she has been on the fenced off land, which is suspicious in itself. And not entirely unconnected with the direction in which that small black kitten took off the other day. hiding Because whether or not she is pregnant again, which is hard to tell, her enquiries into where is a good place to hide a kitten at the back of the house (I know the answer to this one, be patient) have borne fruit one way or another as Itty Bitty is now hanging out there, as is a small black one the same size. Bugger. I'd resigned myself to bringing up Itty Bitty myself as a kind of god-parent but it looks to have been something of a temporary placement while she fetched the other one from wherever he's been including in completely the opposite direction to normal. Has the roof fallen in in the derelict house? Has someone taken the kittens and they've escaped and not gone back? how have they ended up here, behind the house, between a pile of pallets up against the wall.......and yes, I knew where to look because that's exactly where Mischief used to hide when he first arrived (well, once he'd come out of the living room that is).
Deja vu, the feeling that it has all happened before.....yes indeed, the present situation brings to mind the scheming, brilliant mastermind which was Shadow, introducing and insinuating 6, then 8, then 9 campo cats into my hitherto cat free cortijo; the malevolent stare of Sooty (the original one) which said "I live in your garden, you will feed me, but if you come near me I'll have your hand off" before presenting us with 5 kittens who learnt well the principle of eat the food, sleep on the furniture but hiss and spit as much as you can; and now Patch, who set a pattern of being less than obviously pregnant until she disappears for a couple of days completely then reappears starving and eats twice as much for at leas 3 months until miraculously just when you think none can have survived or you would have seen them by now, kittens start turning up. (I have to say breaking the pattern has proved a bit of a bummer as far as I am concerned and is all part of the plot to keep me confused).
Can you see why I am feeling paranoid? That there is a pattern here? That (shock horror) Mischief might be Patch's after all given the similarity in how he arrived last year and Itty Bitty came this year? That whereas before she ignores previous litters and indeed pushes them away once there are younger siblings, right now she has me guessing as she seems to have gathered 3 generations of kittens around her, some or all of them, some or all of the time, and I seem to have no option but to wait it out and see who else turns up...............