Alas, poor Tabatha is banished. Bianca, our neighbour’s fluffy white kitten has grown into a pushy, precocious teen feline and has made it abundantly clear that Tabatha is felix non grata. Bianca is now top cat. After Tabatha was caught catnapping when we endured the invasion of the big black rat I can’t say she’ll be much missed. However, I do hope she’s found a new playground for her orgiastic nocturnal activities and not become another road kill along Bodrum’s busy byways.
I don’t normally do the cute dog thing. I leave that to the legion of emigreys who frantically fret about the welfare of street animals. The trouble is that my friend and fellow semigrey Marie is in a bit of a pickle. Marie has a dog called Harry. Allegedly, happy Harry’s an ardent Arsenal fan. He’s got the dog collar to prove it. I say allegedly because I’ve seen plenty of dogs watching the footie but not one from the canine variety. However, I’m content to be challenged on this point since I could write everything I know about the beautiful game on the back of an envelope. I digress. Harry’s not why Marie’s in a pickle.
Help me
One of the street dogs Marie occasionally feeds turned up at her door up the duff and she’s been left holding the babies, all eight of them. To add insult to injury their mother hasn’t the strength to nurse her pups and Marie has resorted to hand-rearing and intensive care. Some hard-hearted idiots have suggested she should just let them die, particularly the two little bitches as it will cost to have them spayed. Girls will be sluts and they’ll bring more trouble to your door. Marie won’t do this. ‘This isn’t India,’ she says. However, Marie’s in imminent danger of becoming a crazy dog lady, surrounded by poo and a pack of pups that’s turning her fine Gümüslük pile into makeshift kennels. She needs help and needs it fast. Can you solve a problem like Marie?
If you can please email Marie on mtcoggin@prospermarketing.co.uk
Our neighbours have acquired a fluffy little kitten. She’s very cute in a kittenish kind of way. She’s a little ball of virgin snow white fur with big blue eyes. I’m not an expert on cats but I’m guessing this is a rare look. They’ve called her Bianca. Alas, I fear poor Tabitha the Tart’s days are numbered and she’ll be forced to seek board and lodgings in someone else’s garden. Given her promiscuous behaviour I’d recommend a cat convent where she can repent her sins and meow for forgiveness.
Alan’s daughter Samantha was holidaying on Rhodes so he and Charlotte decided to join her for a few days. They offered us unlimited access to their wine cellar and use of their plunge pool in return for cat feeding duties. We accepted without hesitation. Like the Raj of old we headed for the hills to escape the Bodrum heat. We spent a romantic and restful three nights in their luxuriant but unpretentious home overlooking Yalıkavak in the company of various soporific felines and their assorted multi-coloured offspring. The breezy calm was only occasionally interrupted by the call to prayer and the municipal public address system informing the townsfolk of local events, planned power cuts, road closures and the like. It’s a cross between 1984 and Hi-De-Hi. Liam was in frisky, horizontal mood as we lazied around the pool. He whispered to me
We dined al fresco in the courtyard to celebrate the good life and take advantage of a yet another blessed, balmy evening. Liam’s gastronomic ambitions have reached such a pinnacle that we have less and less reason to eat out. We reminisced about our London days when, at the slightest hint of fine weather, we’d rush home early from work to grab the rare opportunity of dining out in the garden.
As we were engrossed in well-oiled conversation, I noticed a rat run across the living room floor and disappear behind the TV unit. Up we leapt to hunt down the errant rodent. This was not a simple task. Agile and cunning, the clever creature ran us ragged, joyfully defecating as it darted hither and thither. Eventually coming to rest by vaulting onto the top of a four foot speaker, he sneered at us with a yer, you and whose army? defiant expression. Superior tactics supported by a broom and a barrier of cushions finally won the day. The beast took flight out of the French windows. We returned to our drinks and resumed our happy banter.
Tabatha the rat catcher was conspicuous by her absence. She had deserted her post to seek out nocturnal activities of a carnal kind. If she continues to fail in her duties her welcome will be short lived.
Street dogs are less prevalent in Bodrum than in Yalıkavak. The few canines wandering the streets are vastly outnumbered by the litters of feral cats that bother al fresco diners and rummage through the bins. After our neighbours moved in they encouraged a tabby cat to take up residence in our shared garden by feeding her kitchen scraps. We called her Tabitha. We assume she’ll be handy for keeping rapacious rodents at bay.
By day Tabitha spends the time basking in the warming morning sunshine and only stirs when the sun is at its height to resume her cat nap under the dappled shade of an old olive tree. By night it’s breeding season and the queen wakes from her idle slumber for a bit of the other. We’re serenaded by a cat’s chorus of ear-splitting decibels loud enough to wake the dead as our feline neighbours indulge in orgies of Roman proportions. I assume Tabitha is the local bike being ridden by every Tom, Dick and Harry. No doubt she’ll soon present us with a litter of multi-coloured kittens.
Our fat perfidious landlord has unveiled his dastardly intention to evict us should he find a buyer for the house. This is in spite of our two year tenancy agreement and faultless payment history. We will jump before we are pushed. Our minds are now set on change and this is the opportunity to cast our net wider than sleepy Yalıkavak. We now know there is more to the Bodrum Peninsula than living in an igloo with a view on the edge of a ghost town populated by street dogs and feral felines. Besides, the vile Vikings are back for the spring and I don’t relish the prospect of enduring the whinging drivel from miserable Cnut or the sight of vapid Ragnild’s gravity ravaged baps. Despite the temporary bedlam, a Bodrum in shiny new livery looks promising.
I love dogs. We always had dogs at home. Petra, Pepe, Rocky and the rest were all emotionally interwoven into the rich tapestry of my family life. When they died, I cried. I even wept when my hamster, Goliath, performed a fatal somersault off the top of the freezer though I confess my pain was short lived and Goliath was quickly replaced by Samson.
After we migrated we were taken by surprise by the volume of stray and feral dogs sniffing aimlessly around the streets. Liam’s often waylaid by a wet snout playfully jammed into his groin and we are often tempted to take Rover home, hose him down and feed him up. I’m not at all surprised that animal welfare is an emigrey preoccupation. The story of an animal-lover leading her pack to a Bulgarian Promised Land like a modern day Moses is but an extreme example of the canine devotion that seems to dominate the humdrum lives of many.
Animal welfare is a noble cause but so too is the care and protection of children. It distresses me to hear and read so little about the plight of the thousands of children in our foster land who lead brutal and miserable lives, trapped within abusive families, rented out by the hour or thrown onto the streets to fend for themselves. Take a look at the following articles if you can bear to know more.
It’s easy to think that the problem is overwhelming and nothing can be done, an all too comfortable mind-set that is underpinned by the apparent dearth of children’s charities and non-governmental organisations working within Turkey. However, it is possible make a difference no matter how small. Why not sponsor a child in Turkey or make a contribution to Unicef?
Sponsor
Care for the animals by all means but care for the children too.
Yalıkavak life is in hibernation mode, and the hatches are well and truly battened down. As a working town, daytime activities go on as they must, but by night the village falls eerily silent except for roving packs of abandoned hounds and the few venues scraping a scanty living from the rare hardy emigrey annuals who venture out after dark.
Sleeping Beauty
Dogs in Turkey are employed primarily to guard houses not to live in them and are discarded when no longer required, usually at the end of the season. The local council does its best to control the numbers but resources are limited and the supply overwhelming. For the most part, the animals seem healthy and happy, more of a nuisance than a danger. I suppose life on the streets is preferable (and certainly more natural) to being tethered to a post in solitary confinement and fed on kitchen slops. We’ve been sorely tempted to salvage a winsome mutt with a sad, down at heel expression but this would be unfair given our frequent sojourns to Blighty to placate our abandoned families.
Animal-loving emigreys are appalled by the callous treatment of man’s best friend. After all, it’s well known that Brits love their pets more than their children. So, fund-raising and re-homing of street dogs is a regular aspect of emigrey life. A concern for street children seems less prevalent.
Alas, poor Tabatha is banished. Bianca, our neighbour’s fluffy white kitten has grown into a pushy, precocious teen feline and has made it abundantly clear that Tabatha is felix non grata. Bianca is now top cat. After Tabatha was caught catnapping when we endured the invasion of the big black rat I can’t say she’ll be much missed. However, I do hope she’s found a new playground for her orgiastic nocturnal activities and not become another road kill along Bodrum’s busy byways.
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