Actually, I've never understood that nursery rhyme. There's doubtless some arcane reason it was created, and - knowing the vagaries of British history - that reason probably involves monarchical naughtiness, plague, or the persecution of religious minorities. What other reasons could you have for inventing a childrens' song???
Anyway, to get back to the point of today's slice of La Vie Angevin, we have acquired, at least for the moment, three little kittens. Chicken Boy James is currently looking after somebody's menagerie whilst they are on holiday and has some cautionary tales to tell about it too: we will not mention the 26 horses, or the 'anorexic pigs' but we will comment that people really SHOULD NOT acquire a substantial number of animals and then not look after them properly. More specifically given today's topic, it seems there are quite a few semi-feral cats down there who persist in popping out kittens, most of which either expire when their mothers find themselves too malnourished to produce milk for them, or when they form the basis of rat-supper. Now, there really is no excuse for this - the Blue Cross and various other charities are quite happy to offer discount or even free speying and neutering of cats and therefore it seems to me this person is either too lazy or too ignorant to do anything about the sad lives her cats are leading. And that makes me cross, but there is little *I* can do about this without landing James and his family in a great deal of trouble as they will undoubtedly be suspects as regards the source of any reports made to the authorities about this situation. So I am between a rock and hard place on this one.
James came round yesterday evening quite distressed about the whole kitten situation as it seems the latest new mother is bone-thin and has no milk... he thus had to deal with the other animals to the accompanying sound of hungry, mewling kittens, which is enough to upset anybody. Now perhaps I am a soft touch, but I did not like to think about this situation too much - there's a big difference in my moral code between knowing these things go on - in which case you can do very little about it other than make contributions to the relevant charities - and having a specific case in front of your nose - in which case I would never forgive myself if I didn't do SOMETHING. So, I suggested if the babies managed to survive the night and evade the rats, he should bring them to me and we'd see what whether we could save them.
Come the morning and a tub of pathetic scraps of life land in my kitchen; and make no mistake, these little creatures are in big trouble. They are tiny little things, skin and bone, one of them has a gungy eye and another has but a stump of a tail as the rest has obviously been a rat-snack. Having obtained a tub of cat-milk-replacement from the vet, I have been syringing 2-3ml down the babies' throats every two hours or so and making sure they are operating correctly at the other end as well. Their eyes have been cleaned up and they have been installed with a hot water bottle, fluffy towel and one of Mini's teddies in a basket next to the Aga and we can but hope they have the tenacity to pull through as I can do no more for them... my readership are politely requested to pester the daylights out of St Francis and St Antony or whatever household deities they possess in the interim... naturally I'll let everybody know how they get on.
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