Athens, First Cemetery cats

Went round the NC today.... always liked looking at the headstones and sculptures you find there. The First Cemetery of Athens (Greek: Πρώτο Νεκροταφείο Αθηνών) is the official cemetery of the City of Athens and the first to be built. It opened in 1837 and soon became a luxurious cemetery for famous Greek people and foreigners. I wanted to see how the architecture differed from English cemeteries. Very little green vegetation aside from alot of tall trees which made for some nice shadow-photo's. Biggest impact on me... more cats. Again a good few kittens and most hanging around with Mum. One poor little black fella had a snotty nose, not looking like he's gonna get that treated - he is in the bottom of the foto with the Mum & kittens. A few quite skinny kittens, what the hell are these guy eating as there isn't much on offer aside from some pigeons that I could see and I can't see the visitors feeding them. Saddest site was a young kitten sleeping in a plant pot. Alot of the cats I have seen so far at least 'look' quite perky and alert, this little guy just looked sad.....

Factory cats... update 1

Right, as I said we went to the factory site today. Very depressing, just a huge walled-off piece if waste-land where the cats are living/breeding. We were there some 30 minutes and a bout a dozen cats, mostly 4-6 months old kittens heard us and came out thinking they were going to be fed. Angeliki reckons there are probably about 50 cats in there. Whilst the cats looked fairly healthy, she says they will all have a short, hard life. Poor buggers. We'll do what we can, but it is like a finger in a dyke to the overall problem. It doesn't help that there is a working factory over the road, with yet more cats/kittens wandering around that we saw. I guess the cats cross over the road between the 2 areas. Here's some of the guys we saw today....

Adventures in cat-trapping....Greek-style

As I was saying.... A very frustrating day as I have discovered I am not going to be able to drive round Athens and catch the cats as planned. Driving is just to difficult... no road signs, no road markings, traffic comes out all directions, all at once! I hired the car and we 'drove' round the sites this morning to see where the cats where and where they would need to be picked up/dropped off at. The final straw was that the vets they need to go to is down town in central Athens and we have to go down at 9pm at night when all the other shops are shut! NO WAY. Street are badly sign-posted as it is so I stand no chance at night, even with my Sat-Nav. We have no-one else who can help who can drive so we are now going to have to use a local taxi driver who works with the local cat volunteers. It looks like it is going to be an afternoon/evening job as we start trapping at 4.30, catch 2 loads of cats who have to stay in an empty house until we can take to the vets at 9pm. I guess so long as it works, it is not what we wanted, but hey....

Bad day continues....

Just typed a bunch of stuff about today and Chrome shut down! Sums up the day :+{