The olive groves, fields and woods around us are home to a small number of cats and back in June, one of these decided that the shrubs outside our kitchen window would be the ideal spot to raise her new litter of three kittens.

They were a sorry little quartet. The mother wasn't much more than a kitten herself. Tiny and in poor condition, very thin; her coat dull and matted; and clearly struggling with the demands placed on her by three kittens who were also not in perfect health.

So we started feeding her – we couldn't not – and that helped her considerably – and her kittens too. But while they were safe enough when still tiny and never straying too far from her, as they got older and grew, they became stronger and more adventurous.

But with this new-found mobility and a kitten's insatiable curiosity, the dangers to them increased. One by one, they simply weren't there anymore.

The little cat would call for her kittens and try to find them. We didn't see her for three or four days after the last of them disappeared. Then one morning she was there again in the usual place we left her food and water. And she's still here. Now sleek, glossy and black. And just a little less wild.

At first, she'd hiss at you and run away if you approached her; waiting until she was sure you'd gone back into the house before she'd risk returning to eat her food.

Eventually, for the sake of convenience, we started to feed her right outside the house, finding a secluded spot for her among the potted plants around our front door.

Every morning now, she's there, sitting on a large stone waiting for her breakfast.

She doesn't run away from us anymore – but neither does she let us get too near. Get inside her comfort zone of about a meter and she'll edge away.

She'll never be a cat you can pick up and stroke – but she's discovered she has a voice. Initially she was virtually silent; now she's quite chatty.

But you have to accept that dealing with a feral cat is always going to be pretty much a one-way relationship. You give. They take. One day, like her kittens, she too might simply not be there anymore.

It's been easy enough to administer some basic care by grinding up worming tablets and mixing these in with her food. But there's a reluctance on our part to interfere too much.

Because she'll never be a 'house cat', we'll never be able to assume the responsibility for her total well-being as we do with our own cats.

I don't think she'll ever lose her wariness of us. And I don't think we'd want her to either. We'd rather she kept the feral cat survival instincts that have served her well so far through her short life.

So our part of the deal is to feed her, (but we know she still hunts); and now the colder, wetter weather's arrived, we've fixed up somewhere under cover for her to sleep; and if she ever got too ill to look after herself, we'd find a way of capturing her and having her treated.

Her part of the deal is letting us do this.

And because she's now our 'outdoor cat'; and because we couldn't go on referring to her as "she"; or "it"; or "the little cat", she now has a name.

Shadow.

It suits her.

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We have a new addition to our life in Abruzzo. A little black rescue kitten we've called Nemo who arrived on Friday.

Nemo's about 12 weeks old and hasn't really had much of a life so far. A month ago he was hit by a car and so badly injured, his back left leg had to be amputed.

He also took a bad knock to the head that temporarily gave him convulsions.

In comparison to those, his other injuries – a couple of teeth knocked out and the tip of his right ear gone too – seem minor.

Some kids who saw Nemo get run over brought him to our vets Roberta and Luca, whose wonderful skills not only saved his life, but also ensured that despite his handicap, his future quality of life would be as good as possible. 

Those kids – maybe Nemo's owners, maybe not – haven't been seen since, which pretty well permanently abandoned him to Roberta and Luca's care, since pet rescue and rehoming isn't a particular feature of life in this part of Abruzzo.

The best they could offer was long-term shelter in their surgery: safe and secure, but after the appalling start to Nemo's life, surely he deserved rather more ease and comfort ?

So when we brought in Little Plum, Edwin and Aurora for their annual jabs on Thursday and Nemo hopped into the surgery to see what was going on, it was a definitely serendipitous stroke of fate. You couldn't hear his story and not do something.

Despite the unknown factor of how Little Plum, Edwin and Aurora would react to his arrival, we had to at least try and give Nemo a new home.

So far, so not bad. LP, Eddie and Rori are wary, but not aggressive. Nemo's too busy stuffing his face with food he's probably never eaten before to really notice.

He's extraordinarily, incredibly affectionate, clambering up onto laps, nuzzling faces and purring at a volume out of all proportion to his size.

And yes, he gets around just fine. With a surprising turn of speed in fact.

And why 'Nemo' ? If you've seen Saving Nemo – and as it's the best-selling DVD of all time, the chances are good you probably have – you'll remember the hero (with his damaged 'lucky fin') endures all kinds of hardship, but eventually lives happily ever after.

Our Nemo deserves nothing less.

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It's hugely encouraging that every week more people are reading the Villasfor2 About Abruzzo blog which I started writing about a month after our arrival in Italy in early October 07.

I know from your mails that you regard me and Pauline as either brave, crazy, misguided and/or visionary, but the simple fact is that we wanted somewhere new to live and to run the kind of small, low-key, laid-back villa rental place that we'd never quite been able to find ourselves.

The About Abruzzo blog is a record of how we do this. To read any of the entries below, click on its title. If you're new to the site, this – and a couple more upcoming chapters along the same lines – will bring you up to date. If you already know the story so far, there'll be a brand new blog along in a minute ! 

• So We Got In Car And Drove To Italy.  The first-ever blog. If you want to know why – read on…
• Introducing – Selva di Altino. A little local knowledge – and the 2005 World and European Pizza Champions.
• The Cat Blog. Meet Little Plum, Edwin and Aurora.
• So We Got In The Car And Drove To Italy (2). More why's. And a few how's…
• Meanwhile, In The Back Seat… "But are the cats alright ?" Yes, fine thanks. We're OK too, by the way…
• Olives And WiFi. An 'About Abruzzo' ancient and modern multi-media mix.
• Introducing – Pescocostanzo. Our favourite mountain village.
• Every House in Abruzzo We Didn't Buy. Don't like that one. Or that one. Or that one…
• The House in Abruzzo We Did Buy. Villasfor2 HQ. Our home – and the site for your holidays for couples !
• We've Had A Little Snow. The perfect excuse for some scenic shots in the blog.

That takes us up to the start of 2008. At this stage, we'd put down a deposit on our new property – but we hadn't actually bought it yet. Find out what happened next in the second chunk of the Villasfor2 About Abruzzo Blog of Blogs ! (And if you'd like to mail us – there's a link at the very bottom of this page – below the space reserved for comments !)

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True, Edwin complained at maximum decibels about pretty much everything from not being allowed to drive, to the quality of the in-car cat catering, for quite a few hours after we set off, while Rori just grizzled for a bit and Little Plum went to sleep. The Channel Tunnel bothered them not at all.

Neither did checking into the first overnight stop hotel at Lens in northern France.

The room met with their approval; they ate, looked out of the window, explored the bathroom, slept, used the litter tray, ate and slept again, while we filed our collective nerve-ends to a fine point watching for the minutest sign of their stress or discomfort. Of which there was not the remotest nano-trace. Why do we never learn ?

Welcome To Your New Home
By the time we'd made it down through Burgundy and the Frejus Tunnel, skirted Turin, survived an overnight stay in Parma at the dismal Best Western Farnese International, hit Ancona and headed due south down the A14 into Abruzzo, before turning off at Val di Sangro and aiming for Ascigno, Little Plum, Aurora and Edwin had become positively blase about international motor travel, popping up when least expected in the back window and getting the perfect jaw-dropping, eye-bulging reaction from every annoying tailgater. Eddie was particularly good at this, fixing them with a steely blue-eyed Siamese glare.

And of course it was entirely predictable that once we'd actually arrived in Ascigno, they decided the car was the absolute best place in the entire galaxy anywhere and they didn't want to get out. And when they finally got dragged screaming into their new home, they hated it with an implacable, irrevocable cat hatred (which is pretty strong actually) and ran and hid. Then they had something to eat, which made things a bit better – but not much. Then they went to sleep and when they woke up, there was a grudging acceptance of the situation in a kind of 'we're-doing-you-one-big-favour' sort of way. And it's been OK ever since. 

Just When You Thought You Were Settled…
Of course we haven't let on that the house in Ascigno is just a temporary rented base while their real new home – and your Abruzzo holiday base – is being built about 500m away.

And those who'd really rather prefer their Abruzzo villa to provide the expected 'holiday for two' rather than a 'holiday for two -  plus the odd cat who might wander into your rental villa from time to time' needn't worry. We understand that other people's pets can be an acquired taste. We're set in about an acre with separate, detached  accommodation for us and our guests, so there's room for everyone. Little Plum, Aurora and Edwin will have their exclusive bit of Abruzzese countryside and you'll have yours.

And yours is bigger.

(Click on pictures in text for larger images)

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