In Greece, F used to go swimming in the sea across the road from our balcony. I could watch her going round… and round…and round ….
The last couple of weeks she has started disappearing in the
mornings that she works from home, carrying the same green & white stripy
bag that used to go to the beach, and coming back later with wet hair and
smelling faintly of chlor.
Across the road from us now is a stream. I can’t quite see its water from the windowsill but I know it’s there; you can hear it roar when the rain is falling and swelling its flow and I used to hunt voles on its near bank in my summer times of old. I don’t recall the stream smelling of chlor, but who knows? If she has been swimming in that lately she risked being washed away in the flood.
Swimming is a strange thing to do. It involves getting wet – a process I totally
abhor, and yet, Mr B has shown me some videos of felines choosing to take a
human style bath.
Weird. It defies nature.
I wonder if they are really feline and not simply something else disguised.
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| Enlarge and enjoy the coat on that greyhound who just got caught in the picture |
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I'm with you, Tigger on water. Staying out of it, that is. But my late great cat CKDuncan loved to swim as a kitten. He would dive into the toilet and swim in circles. When he got bigger, he would join me in the shower. I think he was part tiger.
ReplyDeletein the toilet? Yuck. I had a predecessor who loved to watch the toilet flushing but I regard even that as somewhat weird. I have investigated the shower but only after the water stopped.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteEverywhere looks bleak in winter, Tigger dear... just is. I like that you have water nearby you still. Not as expansive as those Meditteranean vitsas, true, and probably rather less shipping, but nevertheless, to be near water seems somehow right for you. Even if you choose never to point toe at it. I am reasonably certain, however, the chlor is not to be found in that stream. Given news items of the past twelve months, it it could possbly offer far less attractive odours... and be much in need of a dose of said chlor, or bleach, or whatever is required to clear up sewage! Hugs and whiskeries YAM-aunty xxx
This stream has always been a clean one fortunately. You are right no ships, not boats, but it does empty out beside a small ship berth and en route has a little marina near where it joins Langstone harbour. My humans tried to have a toy boat race on it a few years back but there wasn't enough current to carry them along that day. xxx Mr T
DeleteIt looks very cold. I wouldn’t be swimming in there.
ReplyDeleteThe pool, the local I go swimming at, is supposed to be heated but some mornings it feels like there are ice blocks in that.
I’m too sookie to be swimming in a cold river lol
Angela it is not swimmable even by ducks. We see them standing on the bottom and everyone knows duck bums are built very close to their feet. Egrets wade in it occasionally and we have seen a flash of kingfisher from time to time.
DeleteTigger, I have a suspicion that, at this time of year at least, F is doing the same thing as Gail and going to a place where you actually have to pay money to swim. In summer she swims in the River Dee, and I've even been known to venture in too. It is a lovely, clear, clean river, no chemical smells, quite refreshing in fact.
ReplyDeleteToodle-oo!
Nobby.
Nobby knowing your predilection for a mud bath we aren't sure we can take your recommendations about good rivers to swim in. Gail must be very hardy. On our way home from allotments the other day we saw a spaniel spanielling around on our common and then, when called by his humans, he dived into a mudhole. The hole used to be a tree stump that has rotted away and left a neat round (and quite deep) mudbath that has been a heffalump trap for years. It fills with water in the winter and is a trap for heffalumps in the summer. You would love it we suspect.
DeleteI’d love to be near water…even a stream (tampered with like yours or free and easy as it used to be) I’m just a lover of water Tigger…love my bath and love the local pool as well. Like Angela’s mine is supposed to be heated - some days it’s a bit chilly, I think they forget to turn the gas on!
ReplyDeleteHow do you choose which pane of glass to look out of or is yours a different house?
Cathy there is a line of nose marks where I have tried all the panes of glass - both upstairs and down, front and back. I used to go vole hunting on the banks of that stream but these days Mr B won't let me because the cars have gone silent (well I can't hear them anyway).
DeleteBeau says his daddy comes home Mon/wed/fri smelling like chor, but he also comes in from the back yard smelling like clor every day. F might be in a shudder shudder, swimming POOL... you would not like that and neither does Beau Or Big Boy when he was here. I like those houses and the stream here we call them drain or runoff ditches..
ReplyDeleteAt least Beau and I agree on something. I even step very gingerly around puddles. Imagine my shock when I walked downstairs in our Greek apartment and found 4 inches of water in our dark basement. That really put me off exploring there (which I used to love before the flooding started.) That was the day our neighbour found my very disappointed self sitting, wet-footed, on the basement stairs and tried to shoo me out the back via ground floor window. Fortunately F arrived in time to save me the indignity of being thrown out with the street cats.
DeleteOK Moki - you are officially strange. Water makes me curl up. I don't even drink the stuff and F has to sneak it into my food.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to explore, isn't it? Herschel and Jellicoe like stepping into the shower, but not when the water's running.
ReplyDeleteF is very good how she use to go swimming, don't know if I'd dip my toes into that canal water though, sad how water these days is mostly polluted, there are so many warnings at most of the beaches here.
ReplyDelete