A burglar

Two nights ago we were woken up around 1.30 am to some loud noises downstairs. It was rattling and clanking as if someone was trying to get into the house. After not too many minutes of that, I went down to check while C stayed in bed and waited for things to happen. Once I got down, even before the lights came on, the situation became immediately clear. My "Oh hello" in a relaxed voice signalled to C that everything was ok, because the burglar was ... a cat.

In fact, it was a big and fat black and white cat who had taken advantage of the cat flap and had obviously entered the house before - hoping to clean up the previous' owner's kittydinners after hours. In fact, the cat was so fat, that breaking into other cat owner's houses to clean out food is quite likely a common past time.

As it turns out, we don't have a cat. Moreover, the cat flap has not exactly been high on our list of priorities to date. Once I did check whether it was locked, but that was only done from the inside. I found out last night that cat flaps have two locks and can be unidirectional. Ours would let cats in but not out, which is why last night we found this black and white monster repeatedly hurling itself against a blocked piece of plastic, in obvious distress ...

Anyway, so we did open the kitchen door in the end, quickly dismantled the bottom of our kitchen cupboards to which the cat had fled (and discovered some unexpected junk, lots of dirt, and a few boxes in the process), chased the cat out again and locked the cat flap. In both directions this time.

PS: last night we met our next door neighbour who confirmed that the cat in question belongs to the family two doors down and has been known to climb into other houses through windows etc. Apparently, he was also found on the neighbours (not the owners) bed at some point in the past ...