The next day I said: I have interfered with mother nature. And I will interfere more. It made me uneasy. The molly wasn't there. I took the kittens and I put them in the sink and I washed them under the tap with soap for humans who have really sensitive skin, and I cleaned their eyes thoroughly. Then I held them in my arms and walked around the yard with them in the glaring sun until they were dry. Then I put them back to their new house. Washing them ... Read more

The next day I saw her sitting outside her entry hole to the shed, quite peaceful. And then two of her kittens were outside also. Then the molly went for a walk and left her two kittens outside the shed. I went inside the shed and I found the third kitten dead. It was the brown one, the weak one. I went outside again and shut the door properly and blocked the entry hole to prevent the mom from returning to the shed. Then I put a table in my ... Read more

I have a rabbit cage in my house, which I use as a recovery cage for sick cats and those that need time to recouperate following neutering. I had the brilliant idea of rehousing the kittens - and I frankly thought their mom was either gone for good or didn't care much. One of the kittens was so weak that it just lay where I put it, without moving. I figured it was dying. I was wrong about the mom. She was at the rabbit cage within the hour and ... Read more

I started to keep a closer eye on the shed. I still said that mother nature should be in control and that I would not interfere, but I was interfering. If I had not cleaned the kittens eyes every few hours all of them would have died because their eyes crusted over every time. I also placed very mushy catfood on a plate in the shed - and amazingly the kittens were mature enough to eat it. In fact, they gobbled it down. I fed them again the next day ... Read more

A day or three later the feral molly sat outside the shed, sunning herself, and through maneuvering I found out that she had removed her kittens from the bucket and placed them in the dirt on the floor, where the ants and the lice live and where the old shit is ankle high. I found a blanket and folded it and covered a patch of the floor, in the hopes that the little family would stay on the blanket. That did not happen. The kittens rolled about in the ... Read more

About four weeks ago a feral molly appeared in my yard. Small, scrawny, scruffy, feisty, malnourished, heavily pregnant. She entered through the hole in the wall and I knew she had come from across the street, where there are some ruins and loads of feral stray cats. She acted in a suspicious manner and was unfriendly and I figured she was looking for a suitable location to give birth. I chased her back through the hole in the wall because I certainly don't need more residents cats in my yard. ... Read more

He turned-up the next day with no warning. ‘I can’t stay long,’ were the words he greeted her with. It played on her mind that he hadn’t asked her how she was or what she’d been up to. She was still thinking about this when he ran his fingers through her hair and started to kiss her. She pushed him back not quite knowing why. He tried leaning into her again but she found herself again pushing him back. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Why can’t you stay long, I ... Read more

This week’s news: Lightening the goldfish died, cue a hysterical six-year-old. This fact was made much worse because it’s the only thing Luke’s dad has brought him in ages, so to him they aren’t just fish, they’re one of the few ties he has to his dad. Sparkles the gold and white fish with a black stripe is still alive but he needs a friend and the pet shop is all out of goldfish till Wednesday. So not only have I got a hysterical child, I’ve got a hysterical child ... Read more

Angie was sugar and spice and all things nice. She was baked cookies fresh from the oven, Disney movies on a sunny Sunday afternoon and a perfectly kept lawn encircled by white picket fences. She rescued stay and injured animals, she donated regularly to charity and cried at movies based on true stories. Even the bad movies. But, that’s what Dan liked about her. Angie wasn’t a push over who would meekly follow him, but she was helpful and kind and so nice that everybody loved her and kept telling ... Read more

Jasmine sat around the rectangular table, it was dark-oak with matching chairs; antiques. Her mother approved she could tell by the way she was grinning, her mother never grinned unless she meant it. Her sister looked happy and she had every reason to. Her new boyfriend was a good looking banker who lived in a country-house with the longest pebble driveway she’d ever seen and he collected antiques. ‘So Jasmine, you decided to come alone. No man yet then?’ her sister said, glaring at her from across the table. Jasmine ... Read more

It is possible to be sunburnt and drenched in the same day, all-be-it that damp clothes clinging to sunburn isn’t the pleasantest of things. It is true that things can change in one day, drastically change so that just like that things will never quite go back to how they were before. There is always the latest craze that supposedly makes you that bit cooler if you buy into it. The latest ones I’ve noticed are floral prints, smart phones and songs with the word ‘young’ in them; oh and ... Read more

She woke-up in her bed, not remembering how she got there. Thinking about it she didn’t remember any of last night after her fifth glass of wine. She stuffed the pillow over her head but it didn’t rid her of her headache and her mouth was dry and her lips chapped. It was times like this she missed having a proper boyfriend the most. Just being able to wake-up and to know she wasn’t alone and there was someone to get her water and painkillers. She buried her head deeper ... Read more

Claire kept trying to remind herself that when all of this had first started on that cold and windy winter night two years ago, that David had never promised her anything. He had been honest from the start with her, telling her about the marriage breakdown he had just gone through, the painful and expensive divorce and his resolution to never marry again. At the time it had hardly seemed important to her – she had been caught up in that wonderful rush of finding somebody new and the future ... Read more

We met and fell in love, and after 2 brilliant, happy, amazing years, it seemed like such a natural step to move in together. And it was fun at first. We picked out furniture, trying out the beds and sofas in the shop until we were asked to leave. We painted the bedroom, covering each other in bright red paint more than the walls. We smiled and giggled and laughed until the apartment was truly ours. I remember lying in bed with you at night, your hands running along my ... Read more

It wasn’t so much weeknights that got to her the most, it was Saturday night which she found the most tedious. Either she found herself in all night alone, slowly sipping at a glass of wine and trying not to think of him with her. Or her friends asked her to go out and she’d find herself quickly drinking her wine so she could get drunk and not have to take-in the conversations about their boyfriends when she couldn’t talk about hers. Not that she could call him her boyfriend, ... Read more