Sadly Tia disappeared a couple of months ago. We can tell ourselves that she might come back because cats often disappear for extended periods for no good reason but that's unlikely: a street cat never moves far from a steady supply of food. We've put down Tia's disappearance to yet another encounter with a car - sadly far too common round here.
That's one of the hardest things to accept about living with cats, especially cats which started off their lives on the street. You can try to protect them, but you don't own them, and you can't box them in. Street cats come and go on a whim - at least ours do. Jaffa may sleep most hot Summer days in our bathroom but after dark he's a solitary hunter, guarding his territory.
Tango, who started our love affair with street cats, seems to be street-smart enough to avoid the traffic. Now three years' old she's reached the average lifespan for a street cat. But, much as we want to protect her, we have to let her roam as she wishes. And since she was born about half a kilometer from here, that's where she keeps returning to.
This, despite the fact that over the last three years the piece of waste ground where she was probably born is now a large complex of holiday flats, doesn't stop her from wandering off there every day.
The only cat who sticks to us like glue is Elvis. We recently had him castrated (ouch!) and he's sublimated his urge to fight other cats (most notably our Spanish neighbour's ugly and aggressive male) with the urge to clear any food bowl he can reach. He's a more successful eater than fighter, and he's getting fatter by the week.
Elvis now spends long periods of time asleep in our (small) front garden. I'm hoping he can replace his need to hunt with a guaranteed full bowl of cat crunchies whenever he's hungry. We've got an albino praying mantis living in a patch of succulents and a couple of lizards which scuttle up and down the garden walls and into and out of our plant pots but I'm not too hopeful for their long-term safety: just yesterday Elvis spotted one of the adolescent hares which live in the small park opposite our house and he was off like a bolt from an arrow to try and catch it (good luck with that).
So, at present, we're a three-cat family: Tango, la madre, Jaffa, the sulky teenager and Elvis, the latest addition. Let's see how that goes.
