What is she on about now?

Oh dear, oh dear, we ARE in a pickle........

as we used to say at home when I was a kid. Since one of the cats is called Pickle, it's kind of appropriate since she was the first one to get stuck in the deposito. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What's a deposito? It's an external Spanish water tank whether something the size of a hot water tank or a swimming pool or even a lake, it's where they keep the water if they have no mains and what they use to water the land and the crops as well. Mine is the size of a respectable small swimming pool, about 8ft deep and it's disused and empty not least because the sides are cracked all the way down; there is a ledge round the top and a wall. There are decorative tile steps up the outside but nothing on the inside as nobody is meant to be going in there.

One day quite a while ago, probably a year, I was outside when I heard a small and pitiful squeaking from somewhere. Cat owners know their cats and their voices, so it was just a question of finding where it was coming from. Pickle, in the deposito. So off I went, got the ladder out and lugged it down there, dropped it into the tank and up she came. Clever girl. Well, sort of., or she wouldn't have been in there in the first place. I should mention that this is not a nice handy 10 or 12ft wooden ladder but one of those metal (heavy) ones which contorts into a step ladder or a full ladder and has extensions as well plus it's wedged in the locked store room outside on the terrace (yes, the one I locked whoever it was in, probably Squeak and also Patch's kittens one night when they got in there. But I digress.)

Naturally every time someone went missing after that it was the first place I looked, including telling the cat sitter last summer given that Nelson disappeared and came back with an injury consistent with a fall from a great height and a couple of others went short term walkabout or completely failed to reappear. But so far, so good, until very recently.

It's clearly spring and breeding time and none of Patch's kittens seem to know what to do with themselves except make a lot of noise at time so when someone was doing just that down the garden it took a moment to pinpoint the direction and to wonder. Since the vegetation is knee high it's a fair wade down there and up the steps - lo and behold, Smudge the kitten absolutely frantic running back and forth in the deposito. So I wade back up, extricate the ladder and lug it down the garden and up the steps, at which point small black and white pest becomes sufficiently alarmed by the prospect that he take a run at the side wall and shins up and over it before I got the ladder straightened out.

That's still recent news so it has a touch of the "I don't belieeeeeeve it" when as I am trying to get the Spanish van loaded with stock from the UK van without completely undoing my effort at a gate (the land has been fenced to keep out dogs especially those who have killed cats including Stumpy which is another episode recorded on here) I can hear someone yelling for help....surely not......so this time I go along the track and peer over the wall that end - Nelson. Is this how he hurt himself last year I wonder, and he doesn't seem keen to move much...please no, not again......so off I go to get the ladder again and then just as I am about to lower it I get a phone call and have to talk for some time meanwhile the small grey pest Mischief who adores Nelson is becoming agitated and prowling the edges until he finally shins down the bloody wall and there they are the pair of them - athough for once Nelson is pleased to see him (he got tired of the boisterousness a while back but this is different lol). So off to fetch the big heavy ladder but in the course of that a thorn goes right through my crocs and into my foot and I wonder idly if and when I ever will get tetanus given the amount of things which happen to me.........

I should also point out that I went back for my phone just in case something happened and I ended up stuck in there with the little buggers, you never know, also lowered the step ladder as some kind of back up even if it wouldn't get me right up and out. So I end the call and descend, grab Nelson by the scruff, cart him up the stepladder and bung him over the wall. The Pest then decides this is great fun kicking dried up pomegranates around and scuffing in all the dead leaves, and look I can nearly get my head in that pipe there.......but in effect he has only so far to run before I nab him and he is also carted unceremoniously up the step ladder and over the top. While this is going on, Nelson is still moaning and peering over the wall, I'm hauling up the stepladder to take back in but on balance, I think I'll leave the long ladder in there..........