The Ice Age

Hello everyone, Nera the chief cat reporting from a small village in Switzerland where I live with Mr. and Mrs. Human. This picture shows my footprints in the snow, no sorry ice. On new years eve it snowed and then the temperatures dropped below 0°C which means that since that day the snow has frozen and not gone away. Mrs. and Mrs. Human are not very happy as they fall down on the ice - they are not as well balanced and clever as us cats. Mrs. Human is not here at the moment so I will tell you what happened on the Saturday after New Year when the humans had to go shopping again, although I don't know why they bothered. Us cats have our food at home and the cupboard is full of tuna fish in tins.

Anyhow Mr. and Mrs. Human got into their car and drove out of the garage, at least that was what they wanted to do. Unfortunately the driveway from the garage slopes upwards and was covered in a layer of ice with snow on top. Mr. Human gave gas and the car wheels turned but didn't go anywhere. The car was stuck. He then drove backwards and made another attempt, but with no good result. In the meanwhile the garage door descended onto the car. Luckily it has rubber on the edges and did not damage the car. Anyhow it went up again. Eventually Mrs. Human had to climb out of the car and guide Mr. Human backwards into the garage again. Third time lucky, and Mr. Human got the car out of the garage. This was really exciting. We cats were watching from behind the window. So now we have the car outside of the garage with Mr. Human and Mrs. Human in the garage. Mrs. Human tried to walk to the car but slid back over the ice. Mr. Human wanted to help her to walk out to the car but he fell down on the ice. Result was that Mr. Human went shopping alone and Mrs. Human gave him instructions per telephone when he was in the shop about what he should buy. Those humans can really be amusing sometimes.

Now things are gradually back to normal. Someone cleared the ice away from the garage and now it is easy to drive out of the village. Problem is no-one can walk out of the village very well as everything is covered in ice. Another piece of good news is that Mrs. Human's overgrown kitten (she calls him son) has now left us. He was here for two weeks at Catmas (sorry Christmas) and New Year, sleeping in our bedroom - we cats have our own places to sleep. I heard Mrs Human saying it was nice to have him here (she didn't ask me) although she did not see very much of him as he seemed to be away most evenings and spent the day eating and sleeping. So what - that's what we cats do all the time. Of course we now have our Winter programme. It is too cold to spend nights outside, so we just take a quick walk to freshen up the fur and then return home to sleep.

We are now all back to normal, more or less. Mrs. Human is now working all day, but I heard only until the end of February and then she is retired. That is great, then her and Mr. Human will be looking after me and my sister Tabby, and our colleague Fluffy. Although we cats are quite independent, but humans come in useful now and again for filling up the food troughs, giving us a stroke over my (our) wonderful fur and opening tins of tuna.

Another good thing about the cold weather is there is a lot of bird life in the garden looking for food. The problem is we cats cannot walk so fast over the cold stuff called ice and so they get away. As soon as spring comes we will get them.

So that is my news from our Swiss village at the moment. I can hear Mrs. Human coming so I will now come to an end. Tabby and Fluffy send their best feline wishes and so do I.

See all those birds sitting on that wire - Mr. Human took that photo from where she works. A sort of high wire cat canteen.