It´s amazing what´s going on on my terrace...

Neighbour´s cat has spent this winter in a padded crate in our garage. Food was served to Mr. Tuxedo on our terrace, where he also got his daily cuddles. Today I found him on my balcony, frozen with terror. I picked him up, carried him downstairs, closely followed by my own cats who are rather jealous of him because Mr. Tuxedo is allowed to parade in the garden while they are not, and was about to shoo him out of the house , when I saw Namo and Vaire getting their hackles up all of a sudden. Uh-Oh! Something had to be out of order, and indeed, other neighbour´s dog was sitting right on our terrace door, chomping what was left of Mr. Tuxedo´s morning ration. When I tried to step outside, dog bared its teeth and snarled at me. Now I have had dogs for more than thirty years, and I think I am able to handle a Rhodesian Ridgeback on a food providing campaign quite well. I placed the cat on the garden table, turned around and now snarled at the dog myself, slapping him once with the garden magazine, which had lain on the table, for good measure. How come that some people let their dogs out for a morning walk without leading them on a leash, all the more if said dog is a notorious stray? Dog was flabbergasted, peed on the terrace, then tried to get back into neighbour´s garden. Not an easy task, because our property is lower than theirs, and dog was no more willing to jump back over the fence. One thing hubby never had the heart to do was to muck out our last dog´s leashes and collars. Quite useful now, so I was able to walk that stray back to its owners! I wonder how long it will take for it to show up again, because now it knows where catfood is kept, but I refuse to feed Mr.Tuxedo at the back of the house just because some neighbour´s won´t take care of their pet!

Well, she´s never been a girl of many words...

Almost everybody does spring cleaning now, so I decided to jump the bandwagon and began to clear my media cupboard. Off went the old TV-guides, garden- and computer magazines, knitting instructions and DVDs without labels. I was on the way to load up my car with all the trash I had hoarded during the year when I got a message via Whatsapp: "Mum, I might not have Internet the next days." "Okay", I wrote back, "so what are you up to?" "Packing, because we are leaving!" "Uh? Going on an excursion?" "Not exactly." "Then what?" "We will visit a friend of Linda!" "Ah! The one in Auckland, again?" "No, the one with the solid house." "Why would you need a solid house all of a sudden?" "Because of the weather!" "???" "We got a cyclone warning stage 5, and Linda wants us out of the line of fire! We´ll drive up-country to a friend of hers, where we will sit out the storm." Thank you very much, Linda, for keeping an eye on the girls in your custody. It is certainly wise to look round for an emergency shelter when a real big storm is coming and your house is only 300 metres away from the beach side! And thank you, daughter mine, for your thoughtfulness, not wanting to bring your mother into a state of panic, knowing how much she dreads storm!