The Janissaries

Two of the Janissaries in their tree


Janissaries....This is their collective name now; Socksie, Lila, Lilo and Pix.
(Suddenly I have the TeleTubbies tune playing in my head and their adventures match those of those colourful inarticulate creatures).
I'm talking of course about our kittens and the adventure of the other evening; an adventure which almost turned out to be a tragic disaster, and one with unthinkable circumstances in its wake.
Read on....
Lili had gone into town for a few hours and for the first time ever had left the kittens outside in the garden to play. I'd returned home to find them gone and nowhere to be seen. I'd scoured the dense little wood beneath the house, scratching myself on bramble and getting completely filthy, but with no sign of them anywhere. Even went down to the hunter's lodge in the lower field and then a complete circle across to Vittorio's field to look back at the house, hoping to see them from there. But nothing.
By the time Lili got back, our worry was fast moving to panic as friends turned up to join in the search.
At this time of year, especially because it's been dry and perhaps because of their need for food, wolves are seen outside of the National Park, in fact just last week in a little village just below us.
Also it is a time when young foxes are kicked out of home to fend for themselves and being inexperienced they takes risks and come too close to human habitation. Vixen mothers are hungry too and they are known to take kittens, something which they wouldn't usually do.
All this we knew and it was on all our minds, only nobody wanted to voice these fears.
I walked twice along to Vittorio's house with Marina (the Janessaries' mother as you know), and twice she veered off into V's field of corn but I took no notice of this, thinking she was just searching too.
I was beginning to feel sick with worry after what was now almost ten hours since their disappearance and Lili was sitting crying at the top of the Pastore's field.
We had a gloomy dinner outside on the patio and and at about 9.15 I said I thought we should try one more time. I'd thought about Marina's sidestep into the corn field (it's American corn, maize) and I said I thought we should search there. I looped around the back of the field and Lili, Richard, Nick and Cider plunged into its dark green jungle.
And there they found them!
Playing amongst the plants they were with not a care in the world.
I took us a while to catch them all but we were all so triumphantly happy that we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
Nick told us later that he'd said a special prayer given to him by his Tai Chi master, one that he'd only used twice in his life, it is so powerful. Lili said she'd recited a Tantric prayer and I confessed I'd logged in to my star cluster for a bit of help. Richard said he'd known all along that they were safe and well, said he'd read the signs reflected in his bottle of Hieneken. Cider just said 'Cool' (he's fifteen).
What an adventure eh?
It has a nice ending too in that Lili was so overjoyed to see Socksie and Lila alive that she has decided we should keep them ( do you know how much cat food costs here?)
But I'm glad too.
Bessie the dog?
Hmm...she's giving out these long sighs and those ' what next?' looks in which she specialises.