They don't sleep all the time

As preamble to this post, you need to know one of those stories that has become family folklore. Some years ago, our whole family went on holiday to a rambling old house in France: my parents, brother, wife and two children and us with our three children. Not long before, there had been a horrible incident in a youth hostel in France in which a young girl had been murdered by an intruder as she slept.

One night, I woke and went to check on the children, all five of whom were sleeping in one big room. Daughter 2, aged 14, wasn’t in her bed. I checked downstairs: not there either. Not in the bathrooms; not anywhere. I panicked and woke my husband and we searched together. No sign, though no obvious break-in. But I became convinced that she’d been kidnapped.

And then eventually my husband found her. Asleep underneath a bed on the opposite side of the room from her bed, squeezed against a wall and under a pile of blankets. And fine, though unable to explain how she got there.

This is the reference at the beginning of the email my husband sent to me at work today. By the way, I sleep at my mother’s house to keep her company on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, so hadn’t been at home this morning. The chap had been in charge of the kittens – Daughter 2 had gone to work and Son wasn’t up yet.

You also need to know that I have an ambition to have a cat-free room: the sitting room. Yes, I know it'll never work.

Read on - my husband's email follows.

Subject: Kitten report

From one of their owners (traumatised)

I had a "Daughter under the wrong bed in France" few minutes this morning. Cassie managed to escape from the kitchen without my noticing and make her way to the sitting room. She has learnt to scale the cardboard washing machine protection both ways (i.e. in and out) and as I left the kitchen to go to the bedroom she was climbing in. I was sure, wrongly, that I had shut the kitchen door and, for once, didn't shut the dining room door to the hall.

When I came back only Sirius was in sight and, after I'd checked all the usual places, panic set in. I couldn't be sure that there wasn't a way out round the back of the sink unit (there isn't - the mouse ingress was filled in by me years ago). She wasn't in the dining room and so I rushed upstairs to get [Son]. He also looked in the usual places and then hauled off the cardboard and pulled out the washing machine and the dishwasher. Plenty of dust but no pussy. Sirius was just looking on and keeping dumb. I then decided to try further afield and found her nosing round the sitting room.

Panic over but as a consequence I didn't get to work until nearly 25 past 9!

Also when I went in first thing they were sitting in their new basket which had been put on a chair under the table. However, a geranium (still in its pot) was lying on the floor with compost scattered all around. The kittens were very interested when I cleared it up in a "Goodness. How did that happen?" sort of a way. They were then fed and watered (by me) and toileted (by themselves - although at one point they both tried to occupy the tray at the same time which didn't seem like a good idea). I'm beginning to calm down slightly and had better do some work.