May Day ? Mayday !

Whiskers, Son of Thor's kitten that we found dumped in the woods some months ago, that we defiantly weren't keeping, is now sterilized and slightly less silly. So we have spent the last few weeks introducing him to the great outdoors.

He has been pretty good about staying in the garden, only fell over the wall into next door's garden once. Thankfully just their big dog was out at the time and limited himself to barking furiously. I had to cut down two bay trees to avoid a reoccurrence cos he was up on the wall again five minutes after rescue.

Yesterday evening however, he decided it was unfair that he was the only cat with a curfew and shot out the door when the Sock Dropper finally gave in to my demands that he take the rubbish out.

Four hours later I was wandering up and down the track calling him and banging on a tin of cat food in utter panic, thinking that two animal funerals in the same number of days was more than I could bear and well beyond Son of Thor's misery tolerance.

I found four of my other cats all sitting under the big oak. Looking up with a distinct expression on their collective female faces that said "Well he does still have a penis, so what do you expect ?"

A quick survey of the situation ended with me three meters up ladder, precariously balanced on a rather floppy hedge.

The Sock Dropper was allegedly holding the ladder, but kept letting go to chain smoke (from the stress, cos being on terra firma is soooooooooo much more stressful that being in mid air with a spiky hedge underneath you).

Son of Thor aided operations by running around making loud suggestions about what kind of damage I would sustain if I fell and imploring me to make sure that if I did, it was Whiskers side up.

Half an hour of heart stopping grab attempts later I descended with many puncture wounds and a growly kitten, who only discovered he is afraid of heights after he shot up a huge tree and discovered that he couldn't do the trip in reverse.

Whiskers is grounded. Under house arrest. Inside from 5pm onward come hell or high water.

Cos I can live with rescue attempts.

But not in the dark.


Still, Son of Thor has become really interested in gravity.

Especially the splat factor.

He is mulling over how high I would have had to be for each of the hypothetical gory outcomes he has hypothesized for me.

This is not what I had in mind when I bought into the "The World is Our Classroom !!" deal.

I was thinking more along the lines of happy, clappy slightly smuggy-knickers posts.

I want my money back.