An impenetrada

Trust pirate to stick her tongue out!

Right now I feel like I have so many topics I want to talk about, it is like a big disjointed mess. Heh Heh, kind of like how I think most days.
First of all, it is 'H-O-T warm' as my dad used to say (much to my mother's annoyance.) My room borders on unbearable because it is west-facing so it literally cooks all afternoon and then takes until dawn to cool down again. Last night I was miserable. Sweating like an ogre in my bed. I had to kick my laydees out just so I could sleep with the window open. I can't let them have free access to my window because it leads to the terrace which is four-storeys up and despite what people say about cats landing on their feet, I don't fancy their chances, especially those with three paws.
     Actually, the terrace has caused me a lot of vexation since I moved in because I simply cannot trust the laydees out there on their own. And Three-Paw proved me right just the other week when she decided to make a leap of faith from the railing ledge to the neighbour's roof whereupon she ambled right up to the peak. I missed the actual leap because I had gone inside for a split second but when I came out she was gone. I was horrified. I called to my flatmates to ask if they had seen her but very quickly I realised that she had left the terrace somehow.
I climbed up onto a chair so I could see onto the roof and sure enough there was her ample silhouette way up high. I have to say I wanted to cry. I mean she had made the leap of faith across the four-storey drop in an upward direction but trying to do it back the other way with only three paws I knew was going to be problematic. ( She, of course, had not thought this far ahead.) My flatmate gallantly offered to climb onto the sloping roof but I knew she would probably run from him if he tried to grab her and she is the most squirmy cat I have ever known in my life. So instead I was hoisted onto the roof (fueled by adrenalin and raki) and I crept up to the peak of the roof, my eyes on the prize not on the great sloping height. Three Paw, as I predicted, did not bolt from me in fact I think she said something like ' Hey mama, check this out. So cool and high and away from dat Pirate !!'
Anyway I grabbed her, incredibly tightly due to her squirm factor. It was not a pleasant experience for either of us and as I carried her back down to the roof edge to hand down to my waiting flatmate I was shouting to him that when he took her he was going to need to take her very firmly. The problem with a three-pawed cat is when they drop out of your arms they really drop, especially when they are missing their front arm. The potential for injury is great.  Luckily  he took her (with a few minor scratches) and then I came back down from the roof as well.
I was shaking. This was not something I would ever want to repeat.
I knew I would need to build an Impenetrada.  Not just to stop Three Paw's excursions but to prevent Pirate from haphazardly falling through the railings on one of her merry chase-that-fly dances where she sees nothing but the fly she is determined to catch.

So I dungareed up and went to a hardware store (the horror the horror) and bought myself some mesh and binders. Now I have and created a netting round the terrace railing with my own nimble hands. It isn't perfect. It's not going to stop the wiliest of beasts but should be enough for a cat with three paws and another one who isn't really interested in climbing far as such but likes to fly across the terrace in pursuit of bugs

And so far so good. I mean I still hover like a helicopter parent when the girls go out there but I feel a little more at ease and secretly proud of my handy-woman ways.

I would so hire me .-)