As many of you know we couldn’t move to the other side of the world without bringing The Turk’s two favourite family members.  Hurley the dog and his best friend Kedi the cat.  There have been many times that Daughter and I have discussed the fact that The Turk loves his 4 legged family members more than the human variety.

When The Turk originally moved to Sydney he told me that I he hated animals (particularly cats) and that I had to “get rid” of my old boy Cosmo.  I promptly replied that I would be getting rid of him before I got rid of my old boy and over the years he grew somewhat affectionate towards Cosmo which accumulated into real tears when he passed away a few years ago.

Fast forward to now and we have Kedi and Hurley who have flown over in first class luxury and definitely not worse for wear (a big thanks to the staff at petfly.com.au).

Hurley has settled in really well.  You can see his boisterous enthusiasm each morning knowing that there is so much to do with strange new things to sniff, strange new foods to taste and lots of new friends to meet.  As happy as he is being here I can see by the look on his face – he has an issue that cannot be resolved and that issue is – STRAY CATS!

My mother in law tends to feed all the stray cats and she has accumulated 8 regulars that live in her yard.  My father in law likes to walk down to the fish market and purchase the left over fish and then brings them back for the strays (yet he, like The Turk, is the first to scream at the cats if they get under his feet).  So Hurley now has 8 cats to chase which initially was fun however the cats have banded together and started a systematic assault on Hurley.  If he doesn’t watch what he is doing, or where he is walking, or sitting, or sniffing, then a cat will throw itself kamikaze style at Hurley and the yelping by the poor dog would no doubt be heard on the other side of the Village!

Obviously a counter assault needs to take place however I do not think Hurley could undertake that by himself.  Even the neighbour’s dog is afraid of these monsters so . . . I think that counter assault is some time away.

And if you are wondering how the cat is?  Well the bloody thing spends his day sleeping wherever he may choose and then comes out at night where he makes as much noise and cause as much chaos as possible.  More than once I contemplated throwing the cat outside and let those crazy Village cats have him but, of course, I could never really do that even when its 4.00 a.m. and he is knocking all the glasses off the kitchen bench.