Living In An Old Farmhouse Isn't For The Faint Of Heart.

If walls could talk...

The creaks and groans don't happen to a schedule but surprise one often in the middle of the night. Either a footfall above in our attic, which luckily we've assigned to either our feral cat outside ( she gets fed every day, so being feral might be not the right term ) or the odd Marten doing its nefarious thing. Believe me, fresh of the boat we spent many a sleepless night.

In the times of B.C eh, Before Cat, we've heard the scurrying of tiny mice feet, the dropped items and let me tell you it took a lot of courage to fall asleep...wondering if they were agile enough to climb up onto the bed?

By the way, most houses along the edge of the crop fields get unwelcome visitors after harvesting. Not just us I'll have you know!

Since our beloved cat has entered our life, the mice have left the building ( either through the front door, back door or digestive tract ) but the noises have stayed behind.

In good faith, I assign most of them to little Mausi...but some are just too odd. I wasn't sure if I had dreamt it, but I could have sworn that I was in a production of Romeo & Juliet. I heard the sound of pebbles hitting our window.

A case of " Bob, oh Bob, where art though?

but oddly, I knew he was slumbering next to me. Never mind, I went back to sleep.

A few winks later as Bob got up to make us coffee, he let out a little chuckle. It seems our cat has a clothes fetish. We've got a lovely old wardrobe with the top half consisting of shelves enclosed by glass framed doors. The place for jerseys, jeans etc. Well, it turns out that Mausi likes comfort too, because she jumped up into this warmly padded shelf after having found the door ajar, sometime in the middle of last night.

She must have been scratching an ear and mistakenly hit the glass with her claws, which might account for the pebble sound!

Oddly enough, she plays musical chairs with her slumbering arrangements. Only the other day, Bob made her a throne fit for a feral queen which lies gathering dust nowadays. On Saturday she discovered our clothes hamper ( the pre-wash one ) and had seen it fit to sleep in.

So far, she has almost slept everywhere and if we are not careful, our house will resemble a feline hotel, with various sleeping perches in every room... No, my princess, I think you'll have to go back to sleeping in your wicker basket. You know, the one that Daddy outfitted with soft cushions and a soft warm blanket.

Biggi