Sometimes I just get a wee bitty worn down with all the attacks of the wildlife doing their thing on my place. Now that I have almost got rid of the creeper moles, and the peacocks, and the locusts, and the creepies on the fruit trees, the more domesticated type of fauna is trying their utmost to take over the premises!
I could not understand what noises I heard during the night, as if something big was moving around the rooms, pushing things from my kitchen table, and cushions from the chairs! To top all this, I woke up every morning with such bad hayfever that I had sneezing fits till about ten, leaving me quite exhausted!
Then the other night, as I rolled around trying to sleep after another crash without me finding the culprit, I thought I heard a cat purring. Na, I thought, no cat will purr in my room, because I have no cat! Eventually I fell asleep, waking up with another bout of hayfever! I gave the whole house a good look over, but couldn't find anything that moved, or was able to purr! That night I closed my doors early, before it got dark, as I now had a suspicion that something was sharing my house, and this something was quite big! Bigger than the rats that from time to time try and make my home theirs!
I woke up during the night with loud purring in my ears, so I switched on the light, and, lo and behold, I had a sleeping partner! A big tortoise shell cat, and this cat had such a fright, leaped about a meter into the air before making for the door! I was quite lame from shock for a few seconds, and when eventually my legs were able to move, I sped through the house but couldn't find my sleeping partner!
A cuppa was just the thing to pull my badly shaken nerves together, and I realized then that as I am extremely allergic to cats, this one must have slept on or under my bed for a few weeks now, unbeknowest to me! From there the hayfever. Actually, thinking back, I realized that the cat probably worked its way up from sleeping first in the sitting room, then under the bed, and from there onto my bed. Now I must solve the problem of how it got into the house! I think, as I left my doors open quite late, it must have seen its chance and slipped in.
I wish people would not bring cats to Haarlem, and then let them go wild, as they are a real threat to the many birds we find here.
We had the most atrocious weather, with terrible frost that put a period to most of the seedlings I so hopefully planted. They were quite strong already when the frost struck, but not strong enough. Then we had winds that blew off a lot of roofs in the village, and rain that streamed through my roof where the finches had taken away the thatch to make their own homes warm and dry! Will have to redo the roof and soon, as it is becoming quite a hazard.
So, on a cold morning one would find me running around the house trying to get a shot with my catapult at the finches steaaling my roof, or jumping around sneezing without stop, or, when
the pathetic little rays of sunlight peeps over the mountain, sitting half frozen on my little bench, soaking up the little heat available. I will not plant any vegies now, as the possibility for more frost and strong winds are too great!