Sunday, February 5, 2012

One day...many years ago

When I was much younger, my family went to Africa (Tanganyika) to live for 2 years. It didn't matter where I was...I would find a cat somewhere to pick up and cuddle.  This was the neighbour's black cat and as you can see I wanted his beautiful face turned towards the camera.  Since we were only living in the country for a short time, my mum didn't want to get a pet for such a short time.  This was back in the days when people travelled by ship when they moved from country to country so she didn't think it would be good for a cat to be locked up for several weeks when we made our next move to England.  Fortunately, there were many cats in the small village where we lived so I was always able to find one who didn't mind a scratch behind an ear or a pat on the head by a little girl walking by.

One day I thought my parents had relented when I came home from school and found two goats tethered in the yard.  Having spent time on my grandpa's farm in Australia in my very early years, I firmly believed anything furry/hairy/fuzzy and four legged could be a pet.  I quickly named them Jimmy and Monty although they really didn't seem to appreciate any attempts to befriend them.  A few weeks later, I found out their real purpose in our yard. One goat (Jimmy) was stolen not long after but the other goat wound up on our dinner table. And I'll have to say, I have never eaten goat curry since.