Pussies Galore

My friends think I have turned into the archetypal English middle aged spinster. I live in Turkey but I live alone, I paint, I wear gloves for gardening , I go for long walks with my dog, and I have four cats. Help. The next thing you know I will be collecting money for animal charities and working in a charity shop. Well actually, that’s what I want to talk to you about. You would think that four cats is probably more than enough , but I have just met someone who has sixty times that number, the actual number varies between 200 and 250.
Her name is Jeannie Thirkill, and she runs a cat neutering centre just on the edge of Armutalan. There, in grounds of about 6000 donum, on the hillsides surrounded by olive trees, about 250 cats live in little huts. Some are permanent residents, some are being treated for illness, and some are street cats, there whilst they are neutered , before being returned to the streets. When I visited to see if I could help, my dog bit Jeannies’ dog, but I hope she is still going to let me help. There was an article in the post about Jeannie and the work she does recently, so I won’t repeat that, but she does need help, not more cats - donations, volunteers to help in the care and maintenance of the centre, or in fund raising. If you want to help, you can contact her at : info@allaboutmarmaris.com Please help.
My cats of course are pampered pussies, and now they have settled into our new home in Beldibi, they are demonstrating their gratitude by bringing me gifts of local bird and wild life. Occasionally in pieces, Sweeet. They keep me warm at night though(the cats not their gifts), a necessity at the moment as the electricity is a bit variable. It seems that some dispute has prevented the houses being properly taken over by the electricity company, so it’s on a sort of temporary ( and expensive) basis - If other people have their heaters etc on, which they do in the evenings, there isn’t enough power to get to mine. Or, and I don’t understand why, my trip just trips, frequently. Its been like this for 3 years apparently. I find that an amazing facet of life in Turkey, the acceptance by my Turkish neighbours that things just won’t work, and nothing can be done about it. They don’t even moan about it. The expats moan of course, but like me end up going round in circles trying to find out how it can be sorted out. Then sigh and pour another beer.
When I got over the frenzy of moving I realised it was February. I hate February – Even here the skies are grey, it rains a lot, and it’s cold. I know England is in the grip of a second ice age, but it is supposed to be a miserable place. Here isn’t . In England I would of course have a cold or flu now, and I always managed to do something silly around this time of the year - get married, divorced, fired etc. I don’t have a cold or flu now but I have done something silly . I was performing one of my spinster duties – walking the dog, and she leapt lithely up some rocks so I lithely followed. It was a bit wet at the time and I lithely slipped. Unfortunately I lithely slipped backwards, and landed on my back on another rock. As I lay there whimpering , thoughts rushed through my head – the incredible stabbing pain must be a ruptured kidney or liver ? I must have broken some ribs ? I don’t have my phone! Could I crawl the half mile back to my house? Had I got my lipstick for the ambulance? I remembered the Turkish for ‘pain’ –‘agri’, and’ back ‘- ‘surt’. And ‘owwww s...t ‘ , ‘owwwww lanet olsun’.
A friend helped me back and went to the chemist to get me some pain killers and I have perfected a method of getting out of bed without screaming too much. It involves a sort of sideways roll off, onto my knees, then a slow lift from the hips, rather like praying. I get it wrong sometimes and then I do invoke my makers help. “Aaaaah God.” I’ve been told that the act of praying on your knees is actually a good way to exercise and stay supple. . Wish I had done more of it. So now I don’t just do middle aged spinster things, I walk like one ! I get ladies coming up to sympathise with me in supermarkets. I wont be doing a lot of sailing for a while, so finding ways to raise some money to help needy Kits will be a good way of occupying my time. This time of the year is the leanest for them as well.