The killer cat of Corfu

In Agios Magikades, there is clapping coming from the primary school playground as the teacher shouts out instructions.

Singing follows, then a motorbike buzzes by and there is a hubbub of voices in the garden next door as our neighbours inspect their vegetables for ants.

The air is warm and full of red dust.

I can smell the moussaka and pastitsada gently bubbling away in one of the village's three tavernas. The aroma wafts its way across from the plateia and over the rooftops towards the Villa Oleander.

A cockerel crows, sparrows chirrup, bright yellow butterflies flutter by and then a swallow does a body swerve as it lands on our washing line and checks the progress of its mate which is attempting to build a nest.

Our very own swallows. Oh, what fun.

There are swallows, swifts and house martins by the dozen here, chattering, laughing, zooming and hardly ever stopping. Swifts never land on the ground. Imagine how that must feel, always being on the go.

And in the square, they dive-bomb the village cat, the bug-eyed cat that was at death's door a month or so ago until a kindly English lady spent a fortnight giving her medicine from the vet and also paid to have her spayed.

Stray cats can be a nuisance here, feral and unloved, although their presence at the bins keeps the rodents down.

If I were a rat I wouldn't mess with that.

And now, after her treatment, the village cat, the bug-eyed cat, is as right as rain. At the last count, she has killed three swallows.

  

'She goes in to have surgery,' they say at the kafenion, 'and she comes out a killer. She is Terminator.'

I'll be back.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x