Wednesday 15 July 2020

The usual

We arrived last Tuesday evening, a week ago.   After a couple of days we noticed that water was running from the gulley where the supply pipes are located down onto the road.  Mr FF went up to the meter, turned off our supply but the water kept flowing, for once it wasn’t ours.  A day or so later the lady at the bottom of the road came up to talk to us about the leak.  Mr FF went up again, turned off her supply and the flow stopped, mystery solved.   Long story short, her daughter and son in law were here at the weekend, he located and fixed the leak though left the excavation open to ensure the repair was good and Mr FF offered to do the backfilling.  There was the usual discussion about the intolerable situation, that the four owners in our road should get together and demand a common and more durable supply,  moving the meters into our road rather than the snake infested pit up the mountain that no meter reader will enter, but really nothing will change.
The other predictable happening.  I saw a cat in the front garden that at first I thought was Enrico.  It was the female that last year had kittens in our garden, took them to various neighbours after I discovered them and we ended up with 3 living here until we left last year. They weren't around when we returned.  There are 4 little ones this time, I imagine they will be moved now I’ve discovered their location but I doubt that’s the end.  Neighbours will feed them until the end of summer then the kittens will come back to us.  I feel sorry for the under nourished mother constantly producing young, I feel cross that sterilising cats is so rare and so expensive here,  sad that there is no cat rescue organisation to reduce the unhealthy feral population.
These are regular and predictable occurrences, we had settled into a complacent routine of outdoor work, pool and rest, we should have known it’s not that simple.   Back to the builders yard for sand to protect the repaired water pipe, I’m sure the boys there will all be pleased to see us.

3 comments:

  1. In my first marriage we lived with a water pipe shared between four houses - it was always spring a leak and as we were all retired the men would rather enjoy a day round the hold so to speak. Eventually the local water authority took it over and i rather think they missed it.

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  2. Had the 'feral' cat problem on a base I lived on in Italy. People who were living left their cats and of course they had kittens and.... One friend took it on as a personal mission to trap the cats get the vets to 'fix' them and then release them back. It was the best that could be managed as they were too wild to rehome. Enjoy your stay and glad the pipe is fixed.

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  3. It's disappointing that there's no programme in place to neuter the cats. In Greece, or at least on Kos, we were impressed that there seemed to be a good system in place, with the ear being clipped to show that the cat had been neutered. As the years went on, there were more cats with clipped ears and less kittens.

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