The Fourth Day of Christmas – Onion Cats and Squinzano Dogs

Today is the Fourth Day of Christmas. In the song we meet the calling birds, or are they collie or even coaly birds? Several definitions abound. I have decided they are calling birds, calling out their tales, stories and other fine lines. I am in the process of writing up tales of the cats found at Casa Mare, Cipolla, Puglia. Cipolla means onion in Italian, hence 'The Onion Cats'. I have decided that the follow up tales are likely to be based on the dogs found in Squinzano a town in the same region of Italy. The name Squinzano sounds faintly threatening to my ears and I think the Squinzano Dogs may have a slightly 'edgy' set of personalities. Definitely gives me an excuse to keep going back for 'research' purposes. 


The long winter nights are a traditional period for the telling of tales, light hearted or ghostly so……

My challenge for you today is to tell a tale in one of the following formats or styles:

Twitter

Haiku

Nonsense verse

Children's Stories or Tales of the Unexpected


 
The Spotify play list for this post is here


By the way today 20 new legs arrived, which means 40 legs have been delivered already


Update 11.50 my Twitter story...
Squinzano Sam saw a fight.  Two dogs, paws drawn; a whirl of hair, fangs and dust.  A huge Mastiff, Panettone Pete, entered; saved the day.


Update 12.38 - Haiku
Calcanium deep
Hair dust murderous intent
Summer memory


Update 14.19 - Nonsense verse
Squinzano Sam a duplicitous mutt

With paws down

Fought tooth and claw

To ruin his town

Panettone Pete, massive mastiff

Called for Leone

With bag and net

To catch the phoney

Pete shouted ‘get ze bag Leone’

Update 19:10

Squinzano Dogs – A Children’s Story for Adults

If you look at a map of Italy, the country is shaped like a boot.  Way down in the heel of the boot, in a region called Puglia is the town of Squinzano.  Like most parts of Italy the local people like to think they are in charge, but in reality it is the animals that have the measure of the place.  In some parts of Puglia it is cats or geckos but in Squinzano it is the dogs that have the upper hand.  Our tale takes place one day last summer.

Squinzano Sam was a particularly moth eared mutt who seemed to leave a trail of dirt, dust and stray hairs wherever he went.  He had a nasty reputation for double crossing, dirty tricks and generally trying to control the town with acts of duplicity, daring and intimidation.  Squinzano Sam hung around the town square near to the town hall which doubled up as library and ‘Pronto Socorrso’ .  This was high summer; heat reflected off buildings and at mid-morning the streets were almost empty.  In common with most of their compatriots the Italian locals had left their winter houses and moved like some nomadic tribe to their castles in the sun; their beach villas.  During these times there was less food to be found by the Squinzano dogs; communal bins did not overflow, leaving poor pickings for the feral creatures.

A small right hand drive car pulled up outside the Pronto Socorrso and four Inglese climbed out.  They peered at the signs on the walls attempting to translate.

“Definitely an emergency department; but only part time.  It says someone should be in attendance from 11.00 onwards,” said a woman in shorts and a T-shirt.

As she spoke a pale girl in a flowery dress, stood looking miserable and dropped her bag to the ground.

“It’s OK I’m just hot and I hurt.  If I could marry a snowman right now I’d be happy” she said.

An old Italian cycled into view, ceremoniously parked his bike against the wall and started talking to the woman in shorts.  After much muttering about bleeding from the ears, temperatures and specialists he declared that the group should go immediately to the ‘Ospidale in Brindisi’.  The group climbed reluctantly back into the sweltering car and left.

Squinzano Sam shifted his head, flicked first one eye and then the other open, sniffed the air and started to raise his body from the shade of the tree in the square.  Then he saw movement; Mad Rex, a scrawny terrier whippet cross had seen and scented the same thing.  Then as if from nowhere, dropping down from a roof, the strangest of creatures, not a plain black and white cat; but a marmalade orange cat, known locally as the Tangerine Jellicle sprang onto the pavement.  All three had their eyes on the same trophy, the bag dropped by the girl with the flowery dress.  It smelt of foccacia. 

Tangerine Jellicle and Rex raced to the bag; attempted to rip it open and then started to scratch at each other.  Sam hung back, watching, secretly he was very tired following a night out with his bitches the night before; but eventually could resist no more.  Hair and dust flying in all directions, a gnashing of teeth and whimpers of pain drew more dogs and cats into the area to see what was going on. Panettone Pete a huge mastiff came around the corner and waded in to try and sort out the argument..  Then Leone a small cat, with petite features moved carefully round the edge of the group.

Tangerine Jellicle cried out, “grab ze bag Leone.”

Eventually the animals had fought for and collected bits of the prize; Panettone could be credited with having crushed the fight.  Indeed Panettone had saved the day but the toll on all of the animals had been high.  In the street was a mess of fur, hair and bits of flesh from each of the creatures.  As the street cleaner swept up there were bits of Panettone, Tangerine Jellicle and bits of ze bag Leone had rescued.

“You are fantastic for clearing that lot up,” said the man with the bike.

“It’s nothing,” said the street cleaner, “a mere Zuppa Inglese, a triffle.”

                                                                Finito

With sincere thanks to……

Richard P-S also known as @tettig, @isemann and @josordoni for joining in the challenge, you will see I have threaded your ideas into mine.

NorfolkKitchen, The View from Cullingford , @Goodshoeday, @essexgourmet , @MartinCampbell2, @LivinginPulia and @downatheel for the various culinary and other references which I hope you will recognise