Quiet Days

Well we are a week into Ramadan now and I am getting back into the swing of producing harira everynight... and sleeping part of the day! Mohamed and his mother get up before dawn to eat... but are under strict instructions not to disturb me - not that they pay attention to those strict instructions.

Cat wars have continued.... Marmela was the latest victim with another infected wound - this time on her leg. I managed to hold her down long enough the other day to get a hot pad on it... and sure enough yesterday it burst and we had puss everywhere. It seems to be healing nicely now.

The house site is getting ready for the concrete to be poured.... at least now we have 3 rooms and a garage. If the electricity is connected it will be at least as well appointed as the house we are in just now. Oh no I forgot - no toilet.

Well that is all the news for now.

She's back!

I had the brainwave last night that maybe we should check the old house.... I figured if there was a fight and she ran away, she would have run downhill and maybe got lost and wandered until she found something she recognised but the wrong house.

So Mohamed went down and shone the torch through a gap in the back door and sure enough there she was sitting in the patio. He tried to catch her but she ran away, so I went down and managed to get her to come to me (ok I had sardines!)

Anway she is home now and seems quite settled after eating all the food she could find. We kept all the cats in last night but I have opened the door this morning and will just have to hope she doesn't wander off again. She is sleeping quite peacefully now - though with her ears open!

Thank you everyone for your kind words.

It is Aretha's turn for injury - limping badly on a back leg but no sign of a wound. I think it might be a pulled muscle.

.... and then there were four

my sad news today is that Martha has been missing for 3 days and 3 nights now. Her paw was getting better, on Wednesday the swelling was down and she was putting some weight on it. That night there was a terrific cat fight somewhere close by and we haven't seen Martha since.

I keep hoping she will turn up as she has been gone for a day or two before.... but it is getting less likely now - and the village is not so big that she could get lost.

Aretha is in season and doing her seal impression - so if Martha doesn't hear me calling she must surely hear Aretha.

surely not still scorchio

After a day and night of blissful cool I discovered the drawback of air conditioning.... it only works if you have electricity! We then found out that our neighbour (with the meter) had been watching the meter whizzing round and decided we were using too much electricity so switched us off!

Now when we moved in and Mohamed was negotiating how much we should pay every month the neighbour had said that we probably had all sorts of electrical apparatus and would consume a lot. At the time we had not dreamt of air conditioning and so Mohamed argued back and showed him our last bills and eventually settled on a reasonable amount. When we got the aircon we should have gone straight away to the neighbour... but it was very late at night before we got it going, and we just never got a chance the next day... and then he found out for himself. Anyway there were some words and Mohamed came home and said we would be moving!

So here we are in another house, actually a better house than the last one and about 3/4 of the way up the hill to where our house will be. The rooms are much larger (so we can live in them and store all the unpacked boxes etc) and we have two patios - an indoor and and outdoor patio. The drawback is the water is much further away - out of the house, through the patio, through a gate and round the side of the house. Mohamed is doing all the water carrying now.... definitely.

The cats are just about settled in, having done battle with previously occupying tomcat. Only poor Martha has a problem.... she is hopping about on 3 legs with one really swollen paw. I have had a close look at it and can't see any cuts or thorns so I am guessing she has been stung by something..... She seems to be OK apart from her paw so I will leave it for a day or two and see how it goes. She doesn't really like being handled much so if I push it too much she will retreat completely. It was only with a lot of difficulty that I managed the examination I have made.

Meanwhile up at the house, floors have been concreted and walls have gone up in the basement. There are still a few huge boulders that need to be broken down a bit. Mohamed did have some notion of leaving some of the boulders exposed in the wall/floor of one of the rooms.... but I have persuaded him not to do that. They have started building the wall at the front of the house and I hope will be doing the floor/basement ceiling soon.

My friend Kate has arrived with her 3 children for their holiday in Agadir and I went and spent the day with them yesterday. Bizarrely enough it was "Moroccan Day" in the hotel ..... so all the people who never leave the hotel grounds can go home saying they were in Morocco and have a miniature tajine to prove it.