Tabbygate 2

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, well there should be a saying that you can’t teach a tabby anything! After her close encounter of the reptilian kind you’d have thought she’d be a bit more wary of things in general. No, not our daft moggy. On Saturday evening we were heading out to take junior to her school when I saw said tabby reclining by the door. When I called her name she didn’t lift her head and on picking her up she just flopped in my arms. I carried her in and placed her on the sofa and noticed a suspiciously swollen looking paw. After screaming for Sean to come and see and telling junior not to keep bouncing up and down I had to leave her and take junior to school. Sean caught up with us and said that tabby was refusing to drink but had thrown up a couple of times and was now sulking under our bed.
The reason we couldn’t stay with the insane tabby was that junior was taking part in a little performance by her school on the subject of waste and recycling. Coming to Skopelos has been difficult for us in terms of recycling. For over 20 years’ we’ve been sorting and recycling our plastics, paper, cardboard etc but on this small island there are no recycling facilities and it is prohibitively expensive to try and ship waste to the mainland for recycling. The problem of plastic bags is currently being addressed and the supermarkets on the island are to start charging for bags whilst also supplying biodegradable or reusable ones. We use ones brought from England having got into the habit when the charge for plastic bags was brought in in Ireland when we lived there. Junior is very environmentally aware although she was rather non-plussed after I translated the sign she had round her neck at the performance as it read ‘don’t bath, do shower’. Junior hates showers. However she loves performing and gleefully sang and danced with all the other children. They all did really well especially as they all had to sit through speeches by the local worthies first. Keeping over 30 4 and 5 year old’s quiet and remaining seated is no mean feat. Junior was okay though as she was sat next to her friend and they kept trying to get their baseball cap peaks to kiss each other!
Once we got home we found tabby sulking and trying to find somewhere to sit to get comfy. She finally decided on junior’s bed and just to show how soft we are, junior got into bed with me and Sean slept on the sofa! Next morning tabby seemed to have perked up and hissed at our other cat and punched next doors kitten in the face. Aww, bless, she must be feeling better. We put the latest ‘episode’ down to dehydration due to the rather english habit she has of seeing the sun and shouting “yeah, it’s scorching outside, let me out I want to burn”. Hopefully she’s learned her lesson but I really rather doubt it and tabbygate 3 can only be weeks away.