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Our
life here in Spain has not always been a bed of roses,
we have had our fair share of tragedies and disasters
along the way.
A year after her arrival our lovely little dog Paja was
killed on the road outside our house.
When it happened I ran next door to Remes and Gracia in
tears and was given a cup of chamomile tea. Remes helped
me pick poor Paja off the road and we buried her in the
garden. I was upset for weeks afterwards, missing her
funny little face and character.
Clive then had a head on collision with a lorry and
wrote his car off. Luckily he was not hurt.
Worst of all, our house caught fire, after we had very
stupidly gone out and left a fire burning in the hearth.
 We got back to find the house full of thick black smoke
and an armchair and wall by the fire still smoldering.
Our lovely parrot, Oscar, was dead at the bottom of her
cage but incredibly, all our other animals were outside
– an amazing piece of luck as in the cold weather they
are normally snuggled up indoors. We comfort ourselves
in the fact that poor Oscar wouldn’t have suffered, but
it is a terrible loss, as she had been part of our
family for about 15 years, since we were given her by
Clive’s mum, when she herself moved to Spain. Janet had
rescued her from a pet shop in the Isle of Man as she
looked so sad and had a broken wing and no feathers.
Oscar said hundreds of words, all in our voices, she was
just like a little person. I had never been happy about
her boring little life, though, and have tried to
convince myself that she is better off dead as she could
have lived in her little prison for another fifty years!.
She was stuck in her cage, day after day, with only the
rare taste of freedom if Clive or one of the boys had
time to let her out. She loved to stand on their
shoulders and snuggle up to their face, or feed their
fingers as if they were her babies. She hated women
though and though I was the one that fed her and cleaned
her out I got no thanks for it and she loved to peck my
fingers (while at the same time saying ‘ooh! you bugger’
in Janets voice!).
The house was a terrible mess after the fire, the smoke
had even got inside the fridge. Nothing was spared and
the clean up operation was huge. Our friends and family
were amazing though and helped for days on end with the
cleaning and re-decorating. The Spanish insurance
company was not so helpful though – we eventually had to
settle for a payout of only about half of our loss.
Needless to say, we have now changed insurance companies
and use a fire guard!
Life carries on. A few months after Paja died I
persuaded Clive to let me get another rescue dog, so we
got ‘Scruffy’ – a worthy replacement. Then a few months
after that little Suzy was dumped outside our house,
skin and bone and a shivering wreck. Clive was persuaded
again and Suzy became a very grateful member of the
family. We think she was a hunting dog that perhaps was
abandoned because she was no good, as she is terrified
of guns and bangs and even if you swat a fly on the wall,
she runs and hides. Thunderstorms traumatise her
completely, and she occasionally has epileptic fits
which are very unpleasant to witness but I am assured by
the vet are not a problem. She is a funny little
character and likes to be carried like a baby. She gets
very jealous if I give any other animal attention as she
is so desperate for love. She is very kind with smaller
animals though, and will allow the cats and kittens to
play with her and groom her and she has even been known
to suckle our kittens and baby goat (another story!)
Elizabeth also had her Christmas present from my parents
‘Phoebe’, the little white ferret who has the sweetest
nature and lives loose in Elizabeth’s bedroom, sleeping
in a drawer.
Poor Elizabeth has to hang a spare quilt cover down from
her high cabin bed so that Phoebe can climb up and get
in bed with her. If she doesn’t do this, Phoebe trashes
her bedroom at 5am to get attention!
As well as Simba, our big English ginger tom, we gained
Rambo, as a little ginger kitten. He lives up to his
name as he is very sweet and loving and licks your nose
– before taking a chunk out of it! Another of our cats
is Buffy (as in the vampire slayer) who came to us one
Halloween (hence the name). I was out riding when this
tiny little tabby kitten, no more than eight weeks old,
started following me. When I arrived home, approx. two
miles later, she was still with me so of course she had
to stay. Our latest addition to the cat family is Spike.
He is a gorgeous little grey kitten with stripy legs.
Clive found him in a basura on his way home from work (again
on Halloween – spooky!)
Of course Suzy has taken him under her wing and he is a
very spoilt little kitten!
We were very keen from the start to have free range
hens, so once we had sorted out suitable night time
accommodation for them they duly arrived. Scruffy
thought Christmas had come early and couldn’t understand
why he wasn’t allowed to chase them. We also discovered
that he could get through the hole into the chicken
shed. Luckily we soon taught him that he wasn’t allowed
and we haven’t had a problem with him since. Our other
big worry was remembering to shut them in at night and
sadly one night we forgot with tragic consequences – we
woke up in the morning to find them all dead and
scattered around the field – clearly a fox had been to
visit. It was very upsetting.
We quickly replaced them but we always have the worry
that one day we will forget again – we need to invent a
door that automatically closes at night. Meanwhile they
run free, wreaking havoc on my precious garden, but
looking so comical that I could never bring myself to
fence them in. One of these days when I’m digging over
the garden I am going to accidentally chop one of their
heads off as they are always pecking the freshly dug
soil for worms. The only other worry we have had with
them is chicks – that is definitely a learning curve. It
was exciting the first time we realised that we had a
broody hen, but we soon discovered that every time a new
egg was laid she gathered it into her collection and
soon had too many. We decided to put a cross on the eggs
she had already and remove any subsequent ones – not as
easy as it sounds. I am ashamed to admit that we did
serve up a half boiled chick for breakfast! We learned
by our mistakes and the next time we had a broody hen we
separated her until the chicks hatched and were big
enough to go in with the others. The worrying doesn’t
stop there though, as you then have to decide when they
are big enough to go out. One year when the chicks were
running around outside two eagles started circling
overhead. Luckily I was outside with them at the time
and was able to protect them but it was quite worrying
at the time.
One of the hens got caught in a stampede in the horses
field and just curled up under her wings and gave up.
When I rescued her she had a broken leg but apart from
that was fine. Our friend Sue is a nurse so she came
round to have a look and we put a splint on the leg, not
really feeling very hopeful. I kept her in a stable for
three weeks and after that she was fine, she didn’t even
have a limp!
To be continued……………
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