In a faraway dimension, there is a place, where there is a wall; so high the end is lost in the clouds that only the vultures can see. The wall is made up of hearts; not the pretty kind you doodle or see on greetings cards. These are real hearts, withered and rotting, held together with barbed wire. To try to climb them only damages them further, too tug at the wire causes cuts in your skin. Emotional scars that run deep. Hearts are non-returnable. When they are given away ... Read more

My cat Mouse gave birth to a litter of six, three boys and three girls. In adopting Mouse I hade in fact made a pact with myself, to care for her and for that litter for the rest of all of their lives. However, my dear Mouse died four months after she gave birth to this llitter, likely from poisoning. And of this litter, my buddy Axl died when he was about 11 months old, probably from some damn internal infection related to his neutering (intolerance to the material used ... Read more

I have terrible taste in men, in fact I think I purposely go for the ones I’m well aware I will never have any sort of actual proper relationship with. I do this out of fear, I’m terrified of commitment, of settling down with one person and becoming trapped in an unhappy relationship. The reason I’m scared is because I was in one for four-years with a man that made me give-up college, my friends, any sort of social life and then tried his best to knock down my self-confidence ... 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

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

On the third day after the bath the mother lay down outside her new house and fed her kittens. This was a breakthrough. And she did not leave this day, at all. On the fourth day she washed her kittens a little, and she fed them regularly. She washed herself. She yelled at me for coming too close but then she saw the Swedish cat food on the plate and the yelling turned to this rolling throaty R-sound, the message for her kittens to come eat. On the fifth day ... 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

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

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

Hannes (Hansi, left in the photo) is today (21.04.2012) the undisputed boss of my house and my yard, and this goes for both resident and non-resident cats, strays or not, neutered or not. Interesting as this is, this was not immediately apparent as my kits were growing up. But as we move into the second year of my cats' life, this very thing has become a fact that actually has to be realized and dealt with. But in this photo, and given the expression of my guys on this photo ... Read more

When I first rented an apartment in Rhodes (Ροδοσ) in early 2010 I was invited into the kitchen of my landlord to discuss matters. On the kitchen counters I noticed big bowls of food. One bowl held three or four large bunches of seriously overripe bananas. Another held probably two or three kilos of blood red tomatoes. A third and a fourth bowl held large amounts of something else. I remember thinking that they had presumably overstocked, maybe because they had anticipated a large dinner which then fell through. My ... Read more

So last week it was sunny, really sunny. It was a good heat actually, as I’m not a massive ‘hot weather’ fan but it was warm without making my hair frizzy or making me sweaty and horrible. So now this week it’s raining, this morning there was snow on people’s cars and it was freezing. Typical, as soon as the holidays start the weather goes vile; happens every summer holidays as well. So anyway weather aside there are two things on my mind this week, the first is how stupidly ... Read more

I am currently in a slight trance thanks to my neighbour waking me up (and my friend who lives across the road from me and no doubt the entire street including residents from the old people’s home opposite) because he was having a drunken argument in our shared stairway with a girl with the most high-pitched horrendous voice I’ve ever heard and a group of other people at 2am. Luckily if all goes well I should be moving into a house in just over six weeks, so seeing as I’ve ... Read more

Last year an old gray male stray cat used to pass by my house for a feeding. He would always come the same way, approaching across the roof, settle down above the door for a while to check on things, then drop down on the window sill and eat there if there was any food in the bowl, or jump into the yard and eat there. Having the food bowl in the window sill was a very stupid thing to do because this window sill is a through-fare for cat ... Read more

I fall in love with stars. Literal ones. I watch the skies and fold into myself and explore and discover; learn to burst and slip and shimmy in the brightest light I will ever see, the most beautiful tension I cannot feel. On cold nights, on warm nights, the skies are there, ever-expanding above my head into an oblivion I can only know through books. And firelight. And soft, gooey treats shared with loved ones who are as rapt in their observations of the sky as me. It's not the ... Read more