Seven Days in Greece - part 4

When I am packing our cases for a trip to Greece, I always put in a couple of boxes of cat biscuits. This year, courtesy of Flo, there was also a box of kitten food and some sachets of Whiskas that Flo turned her nose up at! We told her that all the hungry pussycats in Greece would love it, and so they did! We had hardly had time to unpack before we met our resident felines. This family consisted of Mum and 4 kittens. They were our welcoming and farewell committee each time we opened the door to our rooms!

One of the kittens was much smaller than the others, and was often excluded by them. I can't imagine his chances of survival are great, although he certainly got stuck in whenever we fed them.

Most of the cats we saw seemed to survive on scraps, and food from the visitors. The local craft shop also collects money and donations of cat food to help the cats through the winter time. Very few of the cats seem to be actual family pets, only one or two were wearing collars. A lot of the cats are very friendly, like the two that spent some time with us down at the beach. It seemed that they wanted some company, and a bit of a fuss made of them. I spotted this handsome chap walking down a side street.

Many show signs of battles, with torn ears the number one injury! There are lots of tomcats all fighting for domination! The locals were hoping that some volunteer vets would be visiting soon to neuter as many of the cats as possible, in an attempt to keep the numbers down. The harbour is home to a large number of cat families. They live amongst the rocks, snuggling down in beds of dried seaweed. If you stroll down to the harbour in the late afternoon you are certain to find plenty of cats sunning themselves. I don't know how this one stayed balanced right on the edge!

This one was King of the Ropes!

This little cat was such a sweetie - she loved being stroked and having a fuss made of her. I wish it was easier to bring cats back home to the UK - she would have been the perfect little sister for Flo! (Mr JK lost count of the number of times I managed to find the perfect brother or sister for Florence!) But just look at that little face, isn't she gorgeous?!

There was one ginger tom who was obviously the overall boss of the harbour cats. He was ENORMOUS, and the other toms all backed away from him! Here you can see a 'biscuit stand off'! Those biscuits had his name on them, and no one else was getting a look in!

This cat was another of our favourites during the week. He was always around when we rattled our biscuits, and enjoyed nudging against us.

There were several kittens too. This tiny ginger one was quite timid at the start of the week, and retreated to the rocks to watch us. By the end of the week, he was much braver and would come up close to get fed.

Here you can see a few of the kittens we met. I wish that they could all have been found loving homes. When I think of  the warm, snuggly places that Flo has to sleep, and all the love that she gets from us, and the regular food, it's awful to think about how hard it is for these little kitties to survive.

I wonder how many of our little furry friends we shall come across next year? Some of them will be around for sure. I'll certainly be there with my camera to take a few photos! Normal blogging will resume tomorrow, when I should be able to show you some knitting!!!!!!!! So I shall leave you now with one of my favourite photos - this one was taken by Mr JK. Bye! xxx