Liz Drummond
LightNews LightNews
cretancat.bsky.social
Liz Drummond
@cretancat.bsky.social
220 followers 880 following 98 posts
Ex Open University Classical Studies student, hobby photographer and cat lover. Brexit exile, immigrant to Greece now living happily in Crete!
Posts Replies Media Videos
cretancat.bsky.social
niaou from 2 of the 10!
2 almost grown cats sit on a bright pink crochet cushion on a cat tree. Pip is a ginger tabby with a missing eye, he is looking at the camera with his other one. Marten is mainly white with ginger markings. Marten is proudly displaying a notched ear informing the rest of the village that he has been neutered. Pip has been neutered as well but as he is kept in the house because he can't see well (his good eye has a cataract) so the vet didn't mark his ear!
November 30, 2025 at 10:21 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Neighbourhood watch?
Ginger, a rather tubby, fluffy, ginger and white cats stands at the kitchen sink looking out of the window with his front paws on the white window frame. It s dark outside so we see the reflection of his head and shoulders in the window. The other item of note is his bushy tail which curls diagonally across his back with the top quarter curling down and back again. Looked at from the correct angle it is like a mirror image of a question mark.
November 16, 2025 at 7:31 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
"Paint me like one of your French girls ..."

Vasilea (Queenie to her friends and Mum cat to the kittens) is posing ...
A fairly podgy fluffy calico mum cat is posing, semi reclining on a blue and white cotton blanket against a maroon and gold cushion. She has been interrupted in the middle of having a good wash and her face tells you she is not happy about it!
November 5, 2025 at 4:01 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
happy Saturday from Kali the microcat who is on fly catching duty today
A small calico cat crouches to the right of the photograph with her right paw raised, She is focused on something happening just above the white and blue cat drinking fountain on the left of the photo. From her pose it is probably the fly she has spent all morning trying to catch. The mid morning sun is coming through the window behind her and lighting up her whiskers
October 4, 2025 at 10:09 AM
cretancat.bsky.social
Soo fortunately has stayed completely unaware - though to be fair that is his normal condition.
a mainly white male cat with black ears and rail is spreadeagled on his back, all four paws akimbo. He is lying on a tiled floor in front of the balcony doors. his eyes are closed and his left front paw is tucked under his chin.
September 17, 2025 at 8:29 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
And a happy second 'gotcha' day to PipSqueak - 1st June 2023 we found a poor little almost blind, sick ginger kitten the middle of the road. Look what a handsome boy he is now!
A small ginger kitten (about 6 weeks old according to the vet) is perched on my leg, one eye is missing completely and the other is bulging with what is probably an ulcer. He has been cleaned and towelled down and is looking a bit better than he did when we rescued him off the street a couple of hours before. He might be scrappy looking but he has gorgeous white whiskers! This is the same kitten 2 years later, he is sitting outside in his harness. He is alert and looking of to the left of the photo, his eye closest to the viewer is deep amber. This is the one that had a bad ulcer, he has been left with a cataract so he doesn't have full vision but enough to see movement and so on. He is looking positively chunky but still hav=s those wonderful white whiskers!
June 1, 2025 at 7:51 AM
cretancat.bsky.social
I'm a big bad 4 week old kitten and if anyone dares steal my toy I'll ...I'll ... I'll... squeak for mummy!
a small ginger and white kitten glares at the camera with his paw protectively over a mouse shaped cat toy that is about as big as he is
April 26, 2025 at 6:30 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
home in Crete after a whirlwind trip to London for a double OU graduation ceremony at the Barbican. My graduation was cancelled in 2020 so I told my daughter @jennikaos.bsky.social that I'd wait and we could graduate together - so here are 2 masters graduates for the price of one! #OUfamily 🧵1/2
I am standing with my daughter Jenni in front of a dark blue sign that has the Open University symbol and name on it. We are both wearing teal blue Masters robes with hoods in dark navy and gold.
March 30, 2025 at 9:13 AM
cretancat.bsky.social
Brothers ...
Two ginger boy cats sitting in a chair Pip has his paws round Basil's neck and is just about to fall asleep. Thirty seconds before he had been chewing Basil's ear!
March 3, 2025 at 6:12 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Today in a picture ... another day clearing away the pruned branches of the olives ... Jimmy has of course been supervising.
Jimmy, a very fluffy ginger and white cat, is backlit by the sunshine as he sits in the middle of a severely pruned olive tree. There are a couple of twigs with some leaves on but the rest of the tree consists of 4 thick branches radiating out from the central trunk about 30 cm from the ground. There are more olive trees and low hills in the background with a gorgeous Greek blue sky (bluesky?!) with some white clouds. In the foreground, wedged between 2 branches is my little battery powered chainsaw which has proved remarkably effective at trimming the cut branches so they will go into the wood chipper
February 27, 2025 at 7:52 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
After a non existent harvest, mainly due to the ongoing drought in our part of east Crete, the olive trees have had a severe pruning. In spite of the noise of the chain saw and wood chipper as we clear up the branches Jimmy cat is happy to sleep nearby and keep an eye on us...
A heavily pruned olive tree stands in the middle of a pile of branches, the remaining branches on the olive are cleaned of almost the vertical growth and any other thin dry branches. In the middle of the olive tree, from where the branches spread out, a fluffy ginger and white cat called Jimmy is sitting observing operations. In this photo Jimmy the fluffy ginger and white garden cat is curled up asleep amongst trimmed pieces of olive wood at the base of the trunk of an old olive tree.
February 17, 2025 at 5:47 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
While we wait to see what is happening with the swarm of earthquakes in the Dodecanese the weather in east Crete has turned cold and windy. Bob, one of the rescue cats who normally prefers to stay outside, has voted with his paws and commandeered the fluffiest cat bed in the house …
Bob, a grey and white cat, is curled up inside the house in a cardboard box with a fluffy white cat bed. The front part of his body is inside the cat bed, his head just inside the opening and one big ear is sticking up. On the top of the cat bed there are two large decorative cat ears.
February 5, 2025 at 12:55 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Ongoing #proofofcat
I have been remiss in posting cat photos! To make up for it here are the three gingers asleep!
The photo shows our three ginger cats, Ginger Pip and Basil curled up on a pile of cushions on a settee. For once they are not all in a pile so it is possible to see the differences in colour. Ginger is a standard ginger and white, fairly fluffy boy with a very fluffy tail. Pip is a ginger tabby, he looks stripy in the photo but when he is mobing you can see the spots. He is a fairly 'dilute' ginger, he looks quite faded and in the sun the long hairs of his coat are more beige than red. Basil is the youngest of the crew, also ginger and white again but he is a really bright reddish ginger. Interestingly in the village our Greek neighbours tend to refer to ginger cats as 'red' which really makes sense when you see basil in the sun!
January 30, 2025 at 5:28 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
We still aren't allowed to get rid of the big cardboard box - Pip keeps remodelling it ...
Pip the one eyed ginger cat is striding with best paw forward out of the remains of a big corrugated cardboard box that now looks more like a cave. The box used to be big enough for two cats (Pip and his best mate Basil) to sit inside and reach up to sharpen their claws on the inside. The box has had one side torn almost completely off, only one lid flap is left and that has been clawed to within an inch of its life. All of the inside has been scratched so you can see the corrugations of the cardboard.
January 12, 2025 at 7:30 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Good morning from Pip the Destroyer

The big box is still in one piece - just but Pip has decided to try and claw his way out of the bottom today
Looking down into a deep cardboard box, Pip, a young ginger and white cat with one eye is sitting and looking out at you. The top edges of the box are shredded where he does his morning stretches and sharpens his claws. The bottom of the box is starting to accumulate bits of torn off cardboard and in the bottom left hand corner of the box daylight is shining through where Pip has decided to create an alternative exit!
December 27, 2024 at 8:38 AM
cretancat.bsky.social
This is the current state of them - for a cat that prefers humans to other cats Ginger is really rather tolerant of Basil!
fifteen minutes after the first photo - in the top of the photo Ginger is still curled up in a ball trying to sleep. In the foreground Basil has moved and is now resting his head on Ginger's backside!
December 25, 2024 at 7:50 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Could be an AI Fail - but it is Basil being a teenage cat and slumping next to Ginger (who is trying to sleep)
The photo shows a ginger and white cat (called unimaginatively Ginger) curled up in a ball. Appearing from the left hand side of the photo is an extra white cat leg ... and a second tail
December 25, 2024 at 7:46 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Pip and Basil say Merry Boxmas to Benny and their Christmas box is the best ever!
The photo looks down on two young ginger cats sitting in a deep cardboard box - the top of the box comes above their heads which makes it perfect for reaching up and scratching the inside - as can been seen by the shredded parts of the walls. The cats are both rescues from the streets of our cretan village. Pip on the left is all ginger and has only one eye - he lives as a housecat but goes out for walks with a harness and lead. Basil is ginger and white with long white whiskers. He is best friends with Pip. He lives on the balcony with his mum but is thinking about moving inside with the humans!
December 25, 2024 at 3:04 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
A grey and white, fairly chunky, cat sitting in a mulberry tree that has been severely pruned for the winter. In the background on the right is part of our neighbours balcony with some plumeria leaves poking over and on the left is the end of the little Greek orthodox chapel of Agios Athanasios which is just opposite our house.
December 21, 2024 at 7:17 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
A trip into Agios Nikolaos today - as always I had to go and say hello to the statue of Europa down by the cruise terminal. It was a windy winters day and the area was quiet so I could spend time just admiring this wonderful piece of work.
Legend has it that Zeus turned into a bull to abduct the Phoenician princess Europa. He swam away with her to Crete where she became the mother of King Minos. Near the cruise terminal in Agios Nikolaos there is a statue of Europa on the bulls back. Europa sits proudly upright facing away from us. Both legs are on the opposite side of the bull. She is holding up a bird in her left hand and an orb in her right hand. The bull is looking round and up at her, his head raised and his horns are ridged. The statue shows the veins in his neck standing out as he looks around. The statue is 4m high and is greenish weathered bronze colour. There is nothing behind it but a dark blue sky. (The sculpture was designed by the Cretan film director Nikos Koundouros and created by sculptors Nikos and Pantelis Sotiriades) this is a view of the statue of Europa and the bull in silhouette - the sun is behind her body so the photo appears monochrome. On the right hand side of the photo the bull tilts its head up and looks round towards Europa. Europa is sitting completely sideways on the bull's back, very upright and her arms are he'd out sideways at shoulder height and then lower arms and hands are at right angles turned up towards the sky in a pose reminiscent of some of the 'Minoan' statuettes of women that have been discovered. as Europa faces us she holds an orb on the left and a stylised bird on the right.
December 10, 2024 at 3:47 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Hi from Ginger who has just discovered our kitchen cabinets …
A fluffy ginger and white cat is perched on top of the cream painted kitchen wall cupboards,
December 6, 2024 at 9:35 AM
cretancat.bsky.social
Good evening all - Tili cat says Hi. She is relaxing having spent the day being pestered by 3 ginger cats
A black and white photo of a black and white cat! Tili is lounging almost on her back but has turned round to look at the camera. her paws are reaching out to us and are crossed at the feet. Her face up to above the eyes is white and her ears and top of the head are black with a black splodge extending down over her right eye as she looks at us. Her paws and what we can see of her tummy is also white and there is a black spot on her back.
December 5, 2024 at 8:01 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
And it's raining! 13mm in the village so far to day, a bit more in the garden which is basically a small grove of olives with our veg patch and some citrus trees which are really appreciating the rain - it is also of course the home of Jimmy the garden cat!
Ripe oranges on the tree with raindrops on them. There are leaves as well that are a bit curly and not in very good condition - the lack of rain has hit everything hard this year. The photo shows the agricultural track leading to the garden - in the foreground there is a large muddy puddle with the rings spreading out from the raindrops. in the background there are olive and carob trees and a vine on the right hand wall and far away in the distance is a patch of blue sky :) a photo of our garden - the ground is dry and on either side are rows of dried out olive trees. In the centre of the photo in the middle distance is our veg patch with cabbages broccoli and kohl Rabi growing. Walking to meet us is a fluffy ginger and white cat with his tail up in the air and the tip waving to the right. This is of course Jimmy.
November 30, 2024 at 2:21 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
Still waiting for the rain ... we had 20mm in the village the weekend before last but that was all we have had this month.

Stats for Sitia - East Crete
Current year to date (29th November) 136 mm
Last year total 395mm

penteli.meteo.gr/stations/sit...
The photo is taken in east Crete just after sunset, looking west. The sky is glowing yellow, orange and shading to grey overhead. There is not a cloud in the sky just the contrail of an aircraft flying high over the island. In the distance a ridge of high ground is silhouetted with some wind turbines just visible standing out against the sunset. In the foreground on wither side of the photo there are the high branches of some trees black against colours of the sky.
November 29, 2024 at 8:07 PM
cretancat.bsky.social
evening sky - East Crete
Looking down the street from the crossroads into our village in east Crete , it is about 30 minutes after sunset so the sky is fading from blue to dark grey. They are random clouds in the sky in the foreground, lightish grey underneath, lighter on the top and just slightly pink where they are catching the last of the suns rays. In the distance there are banks of clouds that are dark grey underneath and light pink - grey on top. On the left hand side there is a green mulberry tree catching the light of the streetlight and on the right a rather scraggy conifer is silhouetted against the clouds. A car is coming up the road towards us with its headlights shining and the foreground is partially blurred by a vehicle travelling fast left to right over the crossroads. There are two small pinpricks of white light about 2/3 of the way up on the right hand side which are reflections in the phone camera lens!
November 26, 2024 at 4:35 PM