Crazy Catlady

F is turning into crazy cat lady.

She has always been prepared to put out supplementary food.  The crazy catlady upstairs did regular soup kitchen twice a day until some sort of back injury crippled her.  Her husband carried on the twice daily dish-out but with such bad grace that the customers have generally sloped off.  He doesn't give them separate piles of food and the fight for the one large dish that he drops in the parking bays has discouraged most of the regulars.

Who knows how or why but Effie had managed to attract cats that gave the impression of having been household cats at some stage in their lives - comfortable with humans, smoochy, OK with being petted and picked up, even prepared to come indoors if anyone left the door propped open.

Cats like that (like me) don't compete well for resources when pitted against the street cats.  We wonder where they have gone now?

F has started doing regular meals for 4 remaining locals:

Mrs Calico

Not her best look (maybe that takeaway menu was not to her taste)

Mrs Calico is the first Greek feline I encountered on moving here.  I was on the inside of the glass window beside the apartment main door and she was on the outside pressing her paw up against the glass.  F says she is the only cat F has encountered here that has fur as soft as mine.  I have watched Mrs Calico getting well smoothed out by F.  She is the 'petsiest' cat of the bunch.  We see her hanging out at the beach sometimes during the daytime.  I should admire her - she has no fear of K9s.

Smudge

Studying Smudge eating...

Smudge was a kitten last year.  He's the white/orange one. F did her best to make Smudge trusting enough to enable vet visits and flu shots and so on, but he was the cagiest of the litter.  His litter mates disappeared around the time they were weaned and only Smudge was left. He still keeps his distance, but he knows where the food comes from - and who is likely to be delivering it. He spent the winter sleeping under the bonnet of my van, and we had to lift the bonnet and check before we could drive anywhere.  Smudge has his mother's beautiful golden eyes which makes F all soft about him.

Leftie

Leftie and friend watching the filming the other day.  He still has an enviable tail.

I have blogged about Leftie before.  He used to be a REALLY BIG cat - not fat, just really really big.  He is another ex-domestic cat. He comes and goes.  Leftie had been away quite a while before turning up about a week ago looking like a bag of bones (big bag of big bones). He and I have at least one thing in common - a propensity to have bad teeth.  F keeps my problem under control with a daily application of special enzyme toothpaste, but Leftie has no one doing that for him and he's finding eating difficult.  He likes F petting him under our apartment.  He managed over time to extend that to around the garden, but despite sniffing and recognizing her, Leftie refuses to be petted outside his 'familiarity' zone.  If F feeds him on the beach she has to let him sniff her, put the food down and back off while he licks it up.  His food is catfood pate mashed up with a raw egg to make it lickable.  He likes that. (I don't like eggs.)

Curious

Curious used to sit in the garden watching F pull weeds and cultivate plants.  F moved along, Curious cat moved along.  That was a couple of summers ago. Curious is black.  F had a black cat when she was a kid.  She has a soft spot for black cats.  Curious comes and goes too.  Curious returned recently looked pretty ragged - he has clearly got ear-mites and has scratched the backs of his ears raw.  He too is cagey, but also playful.  F was cleaning junk off the steps in the retaining wall at the back the other evening and dropped a peg into the back yard.  Curious played with it until she dropped the bag of rubbish and he took fright.  I was watching from the balcony.  How do you explain to a street cat that vets are horrible, but getting the ear-itches cleared up isn't a bad thing in the end?