Little Victories In The Unending War With Entropy

Time's arrow goes one way, from past through the present (which passes in a tiny fraction of a second) to the future. Unlike other dimensions, if indeed time is a dimension. I can walk forwards, I can walk backwards. I can jump up, I can fall down. I can move left, I can move right. But time has only one direction. The reason? Entropy. It's why you can't unstir cream from coffee or resurrect a rotting strawberry. If you have something – anything – it will break. Just a matter of time.

We cannot make time go backwards, but we can slow it down. Take care of your things and they will serve you better, for longer. And save money. 

My daughter's car (below) has been with me now for over two and half years (she's still the legal owner). She bought it in 2020, just after lockdown (we celebrated its purchase with a curry in Ursynów, being among the restaurant's first customers after it re-opened). Before that, it had one owner, the mother of a boy that Moni was at primary school with. A nice family. Good provenance. This 1.2 litre Micra was built in 2005; it sat unsold in Slovakia for two years, after which it was transferred to the Polish market where it quickly found its first owner.

It currently has 147,000 km on the clock, just 7,000km more than it did when I took it for its first przegląd techniczny (Polish equivalent of the annual MoT test) two years ago. 

The car passed the test with flying colours, the guy running the testing station could not find a fault with it, although he made the following observation... "You drive the car sparingly; you don't thrash the engine. You slow down using the gearbox, and driving steadily on quiet country roads that you know well, you hardly ever have to use the brakes. As a result, the disks have developed a slight bloom of rust. Not enough to fail the test, but enough for me to notice. So next time you go for a drive, apply the brakes hard once or twice just to clear the brake disks of any rust."  Will do! 

I am grateful to the car. After a drive to the shops and back (in Warka, once a week), I pat the roof and say to the car "well done!" and thank it for its reliable and economical service. It's all I need from a car.

Another little victory in the unending war with entropy took place under the sink, which over the past year since a plumber last unblocked it, had once again been taking longer and longer to drain. The cause of the blockage – most probably traces of cat food, remnants left in bowls or tins. Ghastly stuff if you think about it – fatty offal mostly. 

Last year's call to the plumber was about three issues, of which the kitchen sink was the easiest to fix, the others being the garden tap and the hot-water tank in the bathroom. Cost of fixing all three – 800zł. The plumber told me that I'd be condemned to regular sink blockages, because when the house was originally built, the run-off was installed at an insufficiently steep angle. "Do everything you can to avoid solids going down there, however small," he advised.

ChatGPT offered me a simple solution to the blocked sink – sodium hydroxide crystals. Sold in Poland under the Kret brand (unavailable in the UK), this is powerful stuff. Clear the house of cats and kittens! Don thick rubber gloves! Open all windows! Don't breathe the fumes! Following the AI instructions for the use of Kret, I poured 200ml of very hot (but not boiling) water down the sink. Then two and a third capfuls of the sodium hydroxide crystals. Then another 300ml of very hot water. Then wait half an hour, taking care to avoid the fumes emerging from the plug-hole.

At last I filled the sink with hot tap water.... No difference. The water was going down very slowly, if at all. But I was prepared for this. I wielded a sink plunger (which I had previously used to zero effect). But now... after the application of Kret, with a sinkful of water... plunger deployed... a couple of hearty pumps, and then a gratifying 'BLGRGRGRGRGLLL' and sudden drainage: the water disappeared as rightfully it should. All good! The Kret had softened and partly dissolved the greasy obstruction, but did not clear it outright. The plunger then supplied the mechanical pressure needed to dislodge the loosened plug. Neither the plunger nor the Kret on their own could shift the blockage, but the combination did. Result!

This time last year:|
The perpetual search for authenticity

This time three years ago:
A dog day's night walk

This time four years ago:
Old soul, new challenge

This time five year ago:
What happened at Monks Wood

This time seven years ago:
Loss, faith and consolation

This time nine years ago:
Summer's wasting away

This time ten years ago:
Warsaw remembers the PASTa building capture

This time 11 years ago:
Drought. It was a dry summer.

This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw's ski slope at Szczęśliwice

This time 14 years ago:
On the road from Dobra, again

This time 15 years ago:
August storm, ul. Targowa

This time 16 years ago:
Warsaw Central's secret underground kebab factory

This time 17 years ago:
Cheap holidays in other people's misery

This time 18 years ago:
Steam welcomes us to Dobra

This time 19 years ago:
New houses appear in the fields by Zgorzała

More mid-August photos

Back to daily long walks. Third day back in action. Not to overdo it, of course (exercises still on hold), but the weather is clement (no heatwaves, but plenty of sun), so off I go. With my camera. All is good.

Below: deer from the rear. A young female roe deer eyeing me suspiciously... I realise that my rucksack, which had been doused with kitten urine, is giving off a confusing smell upwind. "It don't smell... human..." The standoff continued until a tractor drove past, breaking the spell, and scaring the deer off into the orchard to the left.

 

Left: the strawberries have been picked in June, a second crop has since been planted and is growing nicely. Can't yet make out what it will be... Radishes? The parallel rows of greenery converging on a red tractor caught my eye. Along the horizon, houses and street-lights of Grobice.

Below: an amazing photo demonstrating the sheer productive power of nature. This is one of a pair of willow trees by the farm track between Grobice and Grabina that had been pollarded (all top branches cut off) in the spring; underneath is a photograph of the same tree taken two and half months ago, on 3 May.

Incredible to consider just how much vegetation has propagated in a mere ten weeks!

Below: one of my favourite spots in the neighbourhood leading up to the fork in the road, left to Grabina, right to Adamów Rososki.

Below: the reverse view, looking back from the road from Grabina.

Below: the hunters' pulpit in Machcin II. (The is pronounced Machcin drugi as in 'Machcin the Second'.)

Left: back the same way I came. In my rucksack, loads of plums (both śliwki – plums – and węgierki – prune plums). There's an abandoned orchard in Grabina with biennial-bearing trees that are now full of fruit. Unsprayed with pesticides, untreated with fertiliser. I return with 14,000 paces on the clock.

Below: bonus shot, taken on Saturday, a Sichuan Airlines Airbus A330 freighter at Warsaw's Okęcie airport. The Chinese airline flies a regular freight service to Warsaw and then onto either Budapest or Brussels before flying back to its base at Chengdu Shuangliu.

Below: good news at W-wa Dawidy station – the new-style digital information panels are working! As are the new clocks! I am informed that my train home to Chynów (due 18:14) is running five minutes late; the clock is showing 18:19 and indeed behind me it is hoving into view. What a contrast with a time, just 16 years ago, when W-wa Dawidy didn't even have a single sign bearing the name of the station!

This time three years ago:
Climate atonement

This time four years ago:
First month with solar panels on the działka

This time five years ago:
Qualia meditations

This time 12 years ago:
Public and private land in Poland

This time 13 years ago:
Two Warsaw sunsets over water

This time 17 years ago:
Farewell to the old footbridge over Puławska

This time 18 years ago:
Let's ban cars with engines over 2.0 litres

This time 19 years ago:
Ul. Kórnicka gets paved over

Twanged back (again)

One of the purposes of this blog is as an aide-memoire to myself as I physically grow older. Health setbacks are worth recording as they can serve as lessons on what to avoid and how to recover. I can learn from the experience – as long I have an accurate recall of the incident.

Since starting the blog, I have three times injured by calf muscle by suddenly initiating a sprint on unwarmed-up legs (Here's a recent example). Twang! Instant spasm of pain, like being hit in the back of the leg with a baseball bat. And then a week to ten days of immobility, hobbling, limping and returning to normal. In these cases, I knew immediately what went wrong... and have now learned to avoid doing it again. The urge to sprint for a bus or train is restrained by muscle memory.

But with my back, it's something else – a different process. The root cause is harder to pin down...

Was it that I overdid my exercises (holding plank for over nine minutes)? Or carrying too many heavy things (clearing out bags of rubbish for recycling on Monday)? Overdoing the paces (over 19,000 on Saturday)? A combination of all of the above? At least I know it wasn't gardening. That was the cause of a similar sprain injury of my back in the late March when I had a go at scything away dead vegetation. That twisting-upper-body motion requires warm-up exercises! The result was a back sprain that lasted a week and returned two weeks later.

This time – I honestly can't pinpoint one cause. I would like to know, so that I can avoid doing this again in future!

By Tuesday, I would feel spasms of pain when lifting (even taking the cat litter-tray out into the garden), when suddenly changing positions, when my foot dropped into an expected dip in the earth. OW! That hurt! When sitting or lying down – no pain. To the extent that I would forget about it. Until I try to move. OW! Wednesday was the worst; by today I can feel improvement.

Back twangs don't hit me suddenly, they come on gradually. On Monday, I thought I'd pause all exercises, but I still walked 10km. On Tuesday, things were getting worse so again – no exercises – but again, 10km walked. Wednesday and today – I stayed in; other than short excursions around the garden – no walking. And no exercises. The spasms have lost their intensity, but still manifest themselves if I execute some sudden manoeuvre. 

Today it's better than yesterday. There is healing. So – stop the exercises, don't walk... wait it out rather than push through it. The most important thing is going back to my normal routine. I won't be returning instantly to 30 sit-ups, nine minutes of plank, eight sets of back extensions, 60 squats and ten repetitions of bird-dog extensions held for ten seconds each. I need to build up gradually, taking intense care as I return to the exercises not to overdo it.

A steady decline? More sprains, twists, stiffness, falls even... Exercising is the antidote, But overdoing it can lead to problems too. As ever, finding the balance is crucially important. Have I become too obsessive in my quest to 'beat last year'? Time to take it down a notch or too? 

My father taught me a lot about having the right attitude to living with old age. He would often ask “Why was I so lucky?” I think he knew the answer – gratitude. Being grateful for being in good health.

I must say – the very act of writing about it makes my back feel better!

This time last year:
Weeding the tracks/Rail update

This time three years ago:
Dave: An Emissary

This time four years ago:
Fifty years with Virginia Plain

This time five years ago:
The Curve (and one's place on it)

[A crucial blog post!]

This time seven years ago:
Fifty years on, my last kolonia

This time 13 years ago:
Grodzisk Mazowiecki's pretty station

This time 14 years ago:
Exorcism outside the President's Palace

This time 15 years ago:
The raging footsoldier - a story about anger

This time 16 years ago:
Graffiti and street art 

The long summer holiday

This summer has been pleasantly long. Other than June's heatwave (unpleasant, it must be said), the weather has been nicely balanced and without extremes. Some rain – still not enough (my apples are small for mid-August), few sweltering nights, plenty of sun. And daily walks. Join me then for a brisk tour of the manor... (before my back twang – enforced immobility means I have time to process photos.)

Below: where the asphalt ends. Gmina Chynów has published plans for laying down new asphalt on ten stretches of local road... but not here. Fortunately. The dirt-track leading off into the orchards and forests beyond will remain unhardened for some time to come. And the lane on which I live will continue to see only local traffic.

 

Below: Waypoint One - the first point along my journey where I have to decide: turn left for Grobice, or carry on straight for Machcin? As orchard yields to forest, the smell of pine resin makes itself felt.

Below: Waypoint Two – a left turn (along the grassy track) takes me past several orchards into the centre of Grobice (and its one shop); going on straight takes me into the dark forest and Machcin beyond.

Below: one of the Canonical Prospects. Heading up towards where the track forks for Grabina (straight on) or Adamów Rososki (bear right).

Below: leaving Adamów Rososki. Love that sky, those clouds. Orchards line one side of the road.

Below: horse, Machcin. Reminds me of the horses painted 17,000 years ago in the caves at Lascaux.

Below: the border between Adamów Rososki and Jakubowizna. A dark cloud slides in moodily from the west.

On the way back home. I enter the forest from the south, crossing the boundary between old, abandoned orchards and the pine plantation (left). The air is cool and apple-scented, unbearably beautiful; this soon gives way to the smell of pine resin. A hare crosses my path.

Bonus shots from the past week: Below: Michalczew station, two stops down the line from Chynów.

Below: Czech-built, Czech-registered Atec 122 Zephyr 2000 ultralight aircraft overhead. 

Below: buzzed by a PZL W-3 Sokół (the VIP transport variant); I saw quite a few military aircraft in the skies locally this week; they are practicing for Saturday's big parade and fly-past.

Below: trackside views... a Warsaw-bound Koleje Mazowieckie service has just left Chynów station. A modern Polish-built NEWAG Impuls multiple unit (so much more comfortable than the modernised EN57s that share duties on this line).

Below:  two minutes later, and here is the back end of the przyspieszony ('accelerated') limited-stop service from Warsaw to Skarżysko-Kamienna being pushed along from the rear by a Polish-built PESA Gama 111 locomotive. It is slowing down as it approaches Chynów station.

Back home to feed the cats and kittens. Here's Dorian, doing OK. Wave to the folks, Dorian...

This time three years ago:
More about Walking and Health
(The definitive meta-analysis that proves more paces = better health outcomes)

This time four years ago:
Older, wiser – more credulous?

This time five years ago:
Powerless in Jakubowizna

This time six years ago:
Kilometres of new asphalt for Gmina Chynów 

This time seven years ago:
One man went to mow
[out with the scythe on the działka]

This time nine years ago:
My father's penknife and airport security

This time 12 years ago:
Post-holiday detox diet starts today

This time 13 years ago:
Cycle ride up and down the S2 and S79 before they open

This time 14 years ago:
Kraków and back in a day by train 

This time 15 years ago:
Fountains by the New Town

This time 16 years ago:
Old-School Saska Kępa

This time 17 years ago:
The land, the light

This time 18 years ago:
Rainbow over Jeziorki

This time 19 years ago:
Previously in Portmeirion

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

While pondering which book to read next, my gaze swept across the bookshelf in the front room; one book seemed to be just slightly sticking out. "Why not read me?" it asked. So I pulled it out. The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), by Paul Theroux. I don't remember actually reading it... I bought it a long time ago (from an Ealing charity shop). Pulling it from the shelf, I opened the book at the double-page map that preceded Chapter One. On the map was Warsaw. Between Moscow and Berlin. A good enough reason to read it, I thought...

The book traces the author's journey (mostly) by train from London to Tokyo and back via the USSR on the Trans-Siberian Express. The journey took place between September and December 1973; the book was published in 1975. More than half the book – 17 of its 30 chapters – is spent travelling through territories that, barely a generation earlier, had formed part of Britain's Asian empire: from the Khyber Pass to Singapore via Bombay, Madras, Ceylon, Calcutta, Mandalay, Rangoon and Kuala Lumpur. Theroux passes through Vietnam – after the departure of the US military, but before the collapse of the South. On his way he stops to deliver lectures on the American novel, arranged for him by various cultural attachés along his route. How he could keep to the schedule, given delayed trains and missed connections, is never quite explained.

Also not explained are the practicalities. What luggage did Theroux take? What camera? What other equipment? Clothing? The Great Railway Bazaar is not a guide book. The author offers no travel tips – like, none. Theroux seems completely uninterested in helping anyone reproduce his journey. Which, in retrospect, makes sense. Written well before online booking, downloadable timetables and low-cost flights, and long before one could ascertain the availability of seats and sleeper berths from a phone, the informational and organisational effort involved in making such an international rail journey must have been immense. "Just turn up at the station and buy your ticket!" But which station? Which ticket window? Which ticket? When will the train actually leave? Does anyone here speak English? Whom do I bribe to get a better berth?

Theroux's book makes no pretence at objectivity. It is Eurasia seen from a train by one pair of Western eyes. He is often contemptuous of what he sees; "Iranians babbling in Farsi", Indians defecating by the trackside ('the turd world'), drunken Russian train crews, fellow passengers he finds intolerably boring (and then spends the next two pages telling the reader just how boring), attendants touting for bribes. The world he sees is shocking to the modern reader – child brothels, drug addicts, hunger. Compare the cities Theroux describes with their appearance today using Google Maps Street View. The transformation is extraordinary. Behind that change lies one of the great economic facts of the past half-century: billions of people, particularly in Asia, have escaped the extreme poverty that Theroux encountered almost everywhere. [The most recent World Bank data shows 8.5% of the world's population living in "extreme poverty", with two-thirds of that being in sub-Saharan Africa. When the World Bank started tracking this metric in 1981, the figure was 42%.]

The Great Railway Bazaar describes a world that has since changed significantly. Countries have disappeared – the USSR, South Vietnam – or have changed their name – Myanmar, Sri Lanka. Some countries are all but out of bounds for Western travellers today – Iran, Afghanistan, Russia. The Orient Express (Paris-Istanbul) was at its very nadir; a shadow of its former glory, and nothing remotely like the luxury experience of today. There was no dining car attached!

Theroux does not hide the mechanics of turning the journey into a book. He frequently mentions his notebooks, by the end of the journey there were four of them. He is also constantly checking in to see what condition his condition is in. He drinks inordinate amounts of beer, wine and spirits – the latter while crossing Russia.

What makes the book worth reading half a century later is its lack of retrospective correction. Theroux does not know what is going to happen next – in particular in Vietnam, Iran or the Soviet Union. The world he is passing through is about to slip into history – of this he seems unaware. His prejudices can grate with the sensibilities of the modern reader, but they too belong to the historical document. Theroux can be arrogant, entitled, unfair and sometimes obnoxious, but it is precisely because he does not sanitise either himself or what he sees, that the book remains an vivid and highly readable time capsule.

As it happens, I read the book during last week's heatwave, much of it in the late evening in bed, sweltering under a thin sheet, with Céleste and her kittens confined to the house. A suitably third-world ambience was thus achieved, nicely according with what I was reading.

And what did Theroux write about Poland? On page 346, an American couple he met on the Trans-Siberian Express tell him: "We're celebrating by going around the world. We're on our way to Poland..." to which Theroux replied drily: "So you're really living it up." This was still some way before Irkutsk. But his actual impressions of Poland? On the book's penultimate page, one reads: "I slept through Warsaw, glared at Berlin and entered Holland with a stone in my stomach." So much for Poland.

This time last year:
A walk in the sun

This time five years ago
Accounting for coincidence
[Henry Cow – Piekut]

This time six years ago:
Działka food

This time seven years ago:
Proper summer in Warsaw

This time eight years ago:
Poland's trains failing in the heat

This time nine years ago:
"Learn from your mystics is my only advice"

This time ten years ago:
Out where the pines grow wild and tall

This time 13 years ago:
Behold and See (part V) - short story

This time 14 years ago:
Syrenki in Warsaw

This time 15 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'impostor'?

This time 16 years ago:
Running with the storm on the road to Mamrotowo

This time 18 years ago:
St Pancras Station – new gateway to London

This time 19 years ago:
Mountains or sea? North Wales has them both

Confined.

Here we are, Tuesday morning; Day Four of Céleste's recuperation indoors. I remember why Wenusia's post-sterilisation time was so difficult. Céleste is sitting on the windowsill; she is looking me in the eyes, miaowing most plaintively. "Please let me out!" she is trying to say... It was so much easier when I had her brothers castrated. Kept inside overnight and they were allowed out the very next morning.

I have decided to keep Céleste's five kittens inside as well. Unlike Arcturus, Czester, Pacyfik, Scrapper and indeed Céleste, all of whom I allowed out albeit sparingly while Wenusia was in recovery mode, the current brood is a full six weeks younger and currently less demanding of the outdoor life. So they play, sleep and eat exclusively indoors, offering emotional support and solidarity to their incarcerated mother.

As ever, ChatGPT is really useful with explanations and tips in this situation. It warns against early release, saying that an ill-judged leap could tear internal wounds that have not fully healed, and suggests "leaving treats hidden around the house" to keep Céleste amused.

********

Comparing Wiktor, Dorian, Fisia, Mars and Kwincia with their uncles' generation, I see one big difference – toilet training. This lot are far worse. There are regular poos left in the cat baskets, behind the sofa, under my bed or on the bathroom floor. Somehow Wenusia proved to be far more rigorous in teaching her kittens where they can and where they can't defecate. Yesterday, I picked up my rucksack before going out and it smelled of cat wee. A quick spray of sandalwood-scented air freshener did the trick.

Having all the kittens in the house all the time with mum means I can observe the rhythm of their daily lives; the three modes, and how they toggle between them. There's a beautiful time when the manic activity of play – chasing, fighting, knocking things over – settles into a period of serene rest. One by one, they find somewhere to crash and switch off. Eventually, the house becomes quiet. Mum (below) has settled down on the sofa, giving pause to her pleas for early release.

Kwińcia finds a spot by my laptop (below). A safe place to nap.

Below: Wiktor (I currently call him 'Wiktol', as my children would have called him before they could pronounce their 'r's properly) cleaning his toes prior to dropping off on the windowsill.

Adult cats are far more careful and tend not to knock things over; I have to a great extent kitten-proofed the house, but now and then, things fall. Nothing serious; a tin of cat food from the top of the fridge, a dustpan-and-brush from the windowsill in the sień.

Having Céleste and her five kittens in all the time means serving out a whole lot more cat food. They are joined at mealtimes by their elders; first thing this morning I had all 12 cats and kittens gathered around the bowls all chomping away, quite something. I have become a zookeeper; feeding time in the small-cat enclosure. To keep costs down, I have downloaded the Biedronka app and started going there, to play off one retail chain (Lidl) against the other (Biedronka). I check out the cat-food offers in both shops. Buy-one-get-one-free deals get me through one door rather than the other. The savings can be immense. For the cats it means greater access to the premium stuff that I'd not be buying at regular prices.

Once Céleste has recovered, I hope she will be through with vets for a long, long time. Her daughters will (sadly) need to be sterilised; their only hope of procreation is if someone reaches out to me wanting a healthy, whole young female or two to produced a litter of darling kittens. (If you do, let me know! Kwincia and Fisia are up for adoption to anyone wanting to experience the joy of being surrounded by kittens. Easily beats exotic holidays!)

Interesting to read this post from October of last year for the contrast between the postoperative days for Wenusia and Céleste...

This time last year:
Consciously, mindfully, averting misfortune

This time two years ago:
Warsaw's progress to normality

This time five years ago:
Summer winding down

This time nine years ago:
My Mazovian roots

This time ten years ago:
My father revisits his battleground

This time 12 years ago:
Over the hill at Harrow

This time 13 years ago:
Behold and See – the Miracle of Lublin – Pt 1.

This time 15 years ago:
Quiet afternoon in the bazaar

This time 15 years ago:
The politics of the symbol

Godzina W in the centre of Warsaw

Four four years from 2016 to 2019, I spent the moment of Godzina W ('W'-hour) with my father in the quarter of the Powązki Military Cemetery reserved for Batalion Odwet, the Home Army unit in which he served. While this is where the official commemorations occur, the mass event that draws the real crowds is held at crossroads of ulica Marszałkowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie (Rondo Dmowskiego). I have never been before, so I was curious to see how this would compare.

I arrived at twenty past four, so 40 minutes before the sirens would traditionally start to wail.  A public-address system had been set up; someone announced that before the ceremony begins, that a decade of the Rosary would recited (one Lord's Prayer followed by ten Hail Marys). On cue, 20 or 30 powerful motorbikes arrived at the roundabout, revving up their engines and drowning out the prayers.

At half past four, the police closed both thoroughfares to traffic, a signal for people to start streaming in from behind the pedestrian barriers, moving right up to the roundabout and filling the road space from one end to the other. The minutes ticked down. Every higher vantage point – bus stop, kiosk roof, Metro ventilation shaft – was soon topped by young men, some of whom were holding flares. A half-hearted appeal from the organisers for people to get down went unheeded. At a couple of seconds to five, the flares went off. And then, on the dot of five, the sirens began to wail. This was it. Scores of flares filled the streets with flames and smoke. 

Viscerally emotional. I was still in tears from hearing the last song played over the public address system – a song I associate with this day, and with my father – Warszawskie Dzieci. 

The two-minute silence ended and Cześć i chwała bohaterom ('Honour and glory to the heroes') was chanted repeatedly by the crowd. The chanting eventually lost its vigour and fizzled out. A voice at the microphone started speaking in nationalist tones and the crowd began turning away, making for the Metro station or bus stops. "The Germans only pretend to be our friends..." Whatever. Time to leave.

Somehow, I much prefer Godzina W at Powązki. My father would have done so too. But one can't be in two places at one time. A time for quiet contemplation, wandering along tree-lined avenues lined with graves of the fallen.

This time seven years ago:
W-hour on the big day
[My father's last visit to Warsaw. He promised to return for the 75th anniversary. He made it. Three months later, he died.]

This time eight years ago:
My father at the 74th anniversary of the Uprising

This time nine years ago:
73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising with my father

This time ten years ago:
Godzina W remembered with my father – a day of emotions

This time 13 years ago:
Godzina W commemorated in a more civilised way

Godzina W 14 years ago (2012)

Godzina W 15  years ago (2011)

Godzina W ten years ago (2009)

Céleste is sterilised

Another inevitable heartbreaking moment. I called the vet on Monday and arranged to drop off Céleste on Friday morning for sterilisation. Nearly ten weeks after she gave birth, the risk of her falling pregnant again was growing by the day. Unfamiliar tomcats have started showing up; Céleste has been asking to be let out at night in no uncertain way. 

All week I had this feeling that the cats were expecting that some big bad event will happen. When and to whom they did not know. They all paced around in a state of rare unease. Céleste would often look up at me with a questioning expression on her face.

Wednesday and Thursday saw Céleste still busily feeding her brood. All five kittens clustered round her, chugging away noisily.

The cat carrying box was made ready last night; I slept in as late as I could, getting out of bed at half-past seven, quickly got dressed, popped Céleste into the box and put her in the car. Then I returned to feed all the other cats (vets operate on cats with empty digestive tracts, so Céleste got no breakfast). Then I returned to the car and drove the short distance to the vets, arriving at ten to eight. Outside there was already one patient (a Yorkie) with its owner waiting; a minute I arrived another car pulled in with a cat and its owners. It's a busy time for the vets.

The vet called me around one pm, I drove over to collect Céleste. As with Wenusia's op, this one went smoothly.  Below: Céleste has just woken up from the anaesthetic. The kaftan is on. I asked the vet to put it on, as I was completely unable to do this for Wenus on my own.

She was soon at home, surrounded by her kittens. Céleste was in better shape, not shivering and shaking as Wenusia was on return from the vets. She now needs to spend the whole of next week in the house, wearing a kaftan. This was a real problem with Wenusia, who during the last days of her involuntary confinement sought to take every chance to escape outdoors. Below: Céleste has just woken up from the anaesthetic. She is groggy and confused by the unfamiliar surroundings. 

Below: back home, Céleste lay down on the doormat, surrounded by kittens Wiktor, Kwińcia and Dorian.

Neither Wenus nor Céleste will be bringing any more kittens into the world, lovely and sweet though kittens are. I keep telling myself that it's for the best, as it was for her mum. The girls have already fulfilled their maternal purpose. Wenusia's character changed after the operation; she became aloof and started hissing at her offspring and and swiping at them with her paw; today spends most of her time outdoors, calling into the house twice or three times a day for a feed ("You treat my house as a diner!"). Her castrated sons might spend the night outdoors, but once they've eaten breakfast, they usually go out for a poo and then return to my front room for an all-day snooze, punctuated by leisurely walks to the kitchen for the regular openings of tins or sachets of cat food. My front room has become a feline gentleman's club. 

Wenusia had her op 16 weeks after giving birth; Céleste a full six weeks earlier. I would recommend not leaving it. This is a good time. The sooner the better, the quicker the recovery.

Right now, Friday evening, she's in the kitchen sitting on her haunches, her gaze fixed on the floor. She's been like that for the past hour. I wonder what thoughts are going through her head? Is she aware of what the humans have done to her? Would she regret not being able to give birth again? Or does she feel relief that she will never have to repeat that experience?

In the meantime, my current priority is to survive to next Friday morning, when I can finally remove the kaftan and let Céleste out into the garden. She needs fattening up too. Having spent two months on her side breastfeeding, and losing hair, Céleste is stick-thin, resembling a weasel. So her calls to be let out will be answered with cat food and milk (and plain Greek-style yogurt).

Will Céleste's character change? I hope not. I know that her long hair will grow back (the vet confirmed this too) and she will regain her grace and beauty.

Kittens bring great joy, especially between the second and fourth month of their development. All that scampering, play and softness. However, I know that neither my budget nor the size of my house can accommodate another litter. If I can find a new home for Memphis and Kwintesencja, on the basis that their new owner(s) want whole females that will one day deliver kittens, then they will go. If not, I will have them sterilised and hold my cat count at twelve.

[In other feline news: yesterday evening, having come back from my walk, I noticed that the internet wasn't working. A kitten had chewed through the power cable for the router. This is my second kitten-related cable loss, the first being the charger for my phone. Fortunately, I found a 220V-in/10V-out cable with the same connector in the attic from an old router, this cable being about three times thicker than the chewed one. I had to buy a replacement phone-charger cable (59 zł); again I bought the thickest one in the shop.]  

Update, Saturday 1 August: in the cat tower, the kittens cluster around their mum, who spent a comfortable night. From the left (looking down) is Memphis ('Fisia'), then Mars, centrally positioned is Wiktor, then looking down is Dorian ('Łobler'), Céleste, one eye opened, one eye closed, and above her, Kwintesencja ('Kwińcia').

This time last year:
Late-July photo round-up

This time three years ago:
Late-July photo round-up

This time five years ago:
Stewardship of the Land, Jakubowizna

This time six years ago:
The cost of Covid complacency

This time seven years ago:

Uprising commemoration – Day Three

This time eight years ago:
Ahead of the Big Day

This time ten years ago:
Once in a blue moon

This time 12 years ago:
A return to Snowdon – Wales' highest peak

This time 13 years ago:
On the eve of Warsaw's Veturillo revolution

This time 15 years ago:
Getting ready for the 'W'-hour flypast

This time 16 years ago:
A century of Polish scouting