No, this isn’t a totally off the wall blog, although the title might suggest otherwise.  In July we were walking home from Place de la Mairie when, alongside the wall of the Presbytery, I found a baby sparrow that must have fallen from its nest.  Call me stupid, but I couldn’t just leave it at the mercy of the neighbourhood cats.  Sorry, not my style.  He was about this big (not my picture):

I picked him up and took him back to Les Terraces.  I wrapped him in a towel and put him into a small box in an attempt to mimic the closeness of a nest and left him on the top terrace for a while.  Graham shook his head.  I’ll leave you to imagine the speech bubble I could see!

After a few hours of plaintive cries from said baby sparrow (the French for sparrow is moineau, by the way), mama sparrow arrived and began feeding him, which necessitated ensuring that the feeder was kept well stocked, and that there was sufficient water for her too.  She fed him for about 2 days, coming about 8 times a day to keep him topped up.  He (we decided that it was a he, and called him Hoppy) hadn’t yet grown his final tail and wing feathers, so he was trapped, but safe.  Then, as we had a lovely family who had arrived from Ireland to rent for a week join us for a “welcome” drink, Hoppy’s mother arrived, gave him a good talking to and bounced onto the new ledge.  Hoppy followed her.  She launched herself into the air and, to our horror, Hoppy did too.  He was last seen flapping wildly across the Presbytery’s garden.

§

So, last night neither Graham nor I slept well, as our sleep was disturbed by the cries of a kitten all night long.  The sound came from the street side of the house.  Inevitably, this morning I had to see if I could find it …. someone who had been renting an apartment in the building adjacent to Les Terraces had kept a bunch of cats in an outside “cattery”.  She had moved out the previous night, leaving a heap of rubbish on the pavement, and more still in the garden of her building.  Was it possible that the noises we were hearing were from an animal that had either escaped or been abandoned?  I grabbed the wing tip of Sunday’s roast chicken and headed downstairs and out into the street.

Shortly thereafter I found the source of the noise – a Siamese-cross kitten – hiding under a car at the end of our block.  Catching it was no problem, so it was clearly domesticated.  I carried one trembling, flea-ridden kitten home, grabbed a saucer and the milk, plus what was left of an old t-shirt that we’ve been using for rags, and plonked the whole lot on the terrace table.

It hoovered down the milk, so I gave it more.  Having done that, I then did what I do with all problems for which I need assistance …. I scooped it up and carried it down to the Mairie to find out what to do, and where the nearest SPA office was.  Don’t ever let it be said that men aren’t touched by kittens.  They are.  Christophe, the Gendarme de Ville, advised that there is a local charity called SOS Chats de Ville, whereby there are a couple of secure, dry places where feral cats are fed and cared for in the town.  He provided the name of the person who he knew who was involved with it.  After a few phone calls (this is August, so people are on holiday), M. Abribat advised that his wife would arrive at Les Terraces in about 30 mins.  In the interim I tried to persuade Trudi to add the kitten to her menagerie!

No-one arrived, so I called, and called again.  It turned out that our doorbell isn’t working and Mme. Abribat didn’t think to use the knocker!  So, in the meantime, we stayed home and I played “mummy”.  The kitten was quite at home:

If she wasn’t she faked it well!  At 4 Trudi called me “‘Becca’s found a home for her.  Can you bring her to the Mairie in about 15 minutes?”  I did.  The guys were complete softies again.  They wanted to know why we weren’t keeping her (we’d named her Pucette, or little flea).  I explained that we aren’t in Sainte-Foy-La-Grande year round, so couldn’t.  ‘Becca arrived with all of the trappings that Pucette was going to need for her new home as an inside cat in Bordeaux, stashed her in the cat basket and left.  I regretted letting the kitten go, but couldn’t possibly have done otherwise, but she’s gone to a good home – I hope.  I trust that she’s been given a nicer name than we gave her too!

I walked home to report a satisfactory conclusion to the story to he-who-must-be-obeyed and, just after I walked up the stairs, what should arrive in the flat but this:

Enough animals for the day!