ginger

This is my page dedicated to Ginger.

Ginger is my fluffy furry little friend. Her best friend is Tinkerbell.

Ginger, my soft and furry, purry little friend. Full of love, though a little nervous sometimes. Totally understandable though having been born feral, from a long history of feral cats. I knew her grandfather - "Scruffy". He stalked the streets and building sites of Cardiff's Dockland always finding a safe haven in times of danger in my ex-boyfriend's back garden, where Ginger and her three little brothers were born behind the runner beans during a very cold and wet April/May six years ago.

We heard many stories about Scruffy, how he came to be feral, all of them varied, so I'm not going into that here. But suffice to say, Scruffy would call at Peter's house whenever he felt hungry, and Peter would duly oblige. Well you had to feel sorry for the poor old thing, in wet weather he always looked so bedraggled ... I think there must have been a touch of Persian in him to have the sort of coat he had. I've said, haven't I, that he used to pluck his own fur out in the summer, I think it must have been a very tiring job for him to keep a coat like that in order. Obviously, he was too wild to allow Peter anywhere near him with a brush, so pluck it out is what he did. He would go around looking really mangy with large areas of pink skin showing looking really odd with this huge furry face and mane, but when his new winter coat grew in, he would look magnificent. He called, on average four times a day getting fed each time he called, he knew which side his bread was buttered so to speak. He visited for six years, getting more friendly as time went on, coming in on cold wet winter mornings until he'd dried out, then continuing on his patrols.

At that time I worked for a firm of solicitors in the regenerated area of Cardiff Bay, and would often see Scruffy in the most peculiar places often a great distance from "home". He would sometimes bring his "girlfriend" of the hour with him, often with a black kitten or two, to be fed also. He knew who could be trusted, who would feed, who would babysit etc. etc. Zorro was one of his sons, but after a while he stopped calling too, we never knew what happened to him. Scruffy, suddenly became very ill and it was to Peter he came. He allowed us to pick him up and ferry him to the vets. I think he knew. Poor thing, he had cancer, so we did the only thing we could. Peter buried him in the garden, alongside his faithful old Alsation Shane.

Sometime after that Minky arrived ... extremely pregnant. We think she actually gave birth to her brood in the Wendy House in next door's garden. But April was changing into May and Emma the little girl who lived next door, was starting to play outside with all her little friends. The weather wasn't wonderful, in fact, it was pretty cold, and quite wet. However, even so, Minky must have decided that the Wendy House in Emma's garden was not the best place for her babies.

One damp and chilly morning, Peter was attending to his runner beans, tying them up to their sticks, when he noticed movement by his feet. There, he noticed four little shivering and squirming bodies, and their eyes weren't yet open. Minky was sitting on the other side of the garden with the sort of expression that said "Can you help us?"

I arrived at Peter's that morning, it was a Saturday I remember, and that's when he showed me. We had to decide quickly what to do if they were not to perish. We found an old drawer and filled it with old fluffy jumpers and towels and things and made a space in his garden shed. In a shoebox we collected the babies and placed them into their new dry nest. Minky watched us all the while, but made no attempt to show any displeasure. There were two ginger and one black and one an odd sort of grey. With a few bricks we propped the shed door open enough for Minky to go in and out, and then secured the door with rope to stop it flying open in the wind. We left them there, and watched from a window to see whether Minky would rejoin her family. She did. She made her home in the shed with the kittens. When their eyes opened, Peter put in a cat litter tray and the babies very quickly got the hang of using it. Peter would go into the shed to feed Minky but she often would make to attack him in protection of her precious family. Peter dropped so many saucers it was unbelievable. It got to the point that we decided it was a better idea to use the plastic dishes that ready-cooked frozen meals come in, they bounce and don't break!

It didn't take long for the kittens to grow and start becoming more adventurous. We had, of course to give them names. The oddly coloured grey kitten we at first called Simon .... we thought he was a tad simple you see. The jet black kitten we called Sooty, and the two ginger ones Fred and Ginger ... you see, we had no clue as to their sexes at this point. We were so unsure about trying to handle the kittens, but really regretted that we left it too long in the end. However, "Simon" started to go darker and we decided that he was going to be black after all. Simon and Ginger had long coats, Sooty and Fred short. They were really a very odd mixture from one litter.

It soon became clear that there was a definite pecking order, and Ginger was firmly in charge. With the babies maturing very fast, we ultimately concluded that Ginger was a girl, she evidently lacked something (or a couple of somethings) that the others had! As soon as it seemed that the kittens could manage a few hours without their mum, we borrowed a cat trap and caught Minky and took her to the vet to have her babymaking "equipment" re-arranged. She coped with it extremely well, and the vet told us that she had been pregnant again! I bet it was that boyfriend of hers "Felix" ... we called him that because he looked like the Felix on the catfood tin.

We had to make a decision. Peter couldn't cope with feeding this enormous brood. I decided that I'd adopt 2 of them myself. This is where I made a poor decision. I should have picked Ginger and Simon who was later rechristened William and I cant remember why that happened now (one of the prices of getting older maybe!!) Of the four of them, William was the friendliest (maybe that's why we called him Simon... because he didnt have the sense to be nervous of humans!) However, I decided on Fred and Ginger (Astair and Rogers if you hadn't worked that out by now). I brought them home to where Bruno and Buster were forced to live with these two extremely wild little monsters.

The kittens were confined to the living room and the other two weren't allowed in until the babies were a bit bigger. Fred never made friends with me ... he truly had the feral gene, but Ginger, after a few months doing her best to avoid me, one day started rubbing her head against my hand as it dangled over the settee, and a few weeks later suddenly jumped into my lap all of her own accord. The relief I felt at that time can't be explained, but from that day on, she decided I was her friend, and that she was in love with Bruno. She also suffered quite badly from enteritis, which is another story too revolting to go into here. That was eventually cleared up ... and she's not allowed melon any more!!

It was essential I have Ginger's babymaking equipment rearranged as quickly as possible, because Fred was never going to allow me to catch him to have his seen to, the day came and went, and she didn't even seem to notice the difference.

To this day, Ginger is my very good little chum, and has now, without Fred's paranoid behaviour really come out of herself, becoming more and more friendly with others, and much more demanding when it comes to cuddles, tickles and kisses.

She wasn't keen when Tinkerbell made her appearance, but our holiday away leaving them at home with pet sitting services, has forged a bond between them that seems very strong now, I'm so pleased to say!