Sleeping on the Job

Meet Pancho, the finca feline. But he wasn't always called Pancho of course.

When we first came here and cleared the waist-high weeds at the front of the house, the mice were fairly disgruntled at being evicted but more than happy to set up home in the casita. This was not entirely to our liking and we asked our neighbour if he could get us a cat or kitten.

He would be pleased to do so, he told us. But it couldn't just be any ordinary cat - it had to be a good hunter. He had one in mind for us whose father, he told us, was as big as a tiger.

One day, he presented us with Pancho, a tiny ball of fluff with big eyes.

'If you think it's ugly,' said the neighbour, 'just let it go.' The country people here are tough.

But since when has a kitten been ugly? So of course we kept him. But for some reason we assumed he was a she (cute, cuddly, all the female attributes). And so we called her Francesca after the area in which we live, Franceses.

Francesca grew up and not only became an intrepid hunter of mice, lizards and rabbits, but grew body parts that girls don't have.

So Francesca became Francisco.

'Ah,' said our neighbour, 'all Francisco's here get the nickname Pancho.'

So that's how Pancho got his name. Here he is keeping guard.