D is for Do

Well, yesterday came and went without a post. Pfff. To be frank I’m too sleep deprived to care.
If you were the new tenant upstairs you could be forgiven for thinking I had a newborn at the breast given the number of times I’ve been getting woken up by wailing and crying in the middle of the night. The attention seeking behaviour however, belongs to the cat. And hear (see?) me out before you accuse me of being too soft…
I have louvre windows in my bedroom, an unusual choice perhaps, but as they are immediately next to the stairs that are the exit and egress for the upstairs units, the windows needed to be space conscious… They’re old, crappy steel framed panels that are rusted to all billy-o. I took advantage of this decrepitude (ace word, that) in the early summer and wedged the top pane open to allow some fresh air to circulate… I really do prefer to sleep with a window open.
I have also begun to leave them open during the day to give the cat access to the house as I do not have a cat door and I also figured that should a burglar have a go louvres would be harder to break into than the other solid pane window I used to leave open for him.
Anyway the cat has got a bit used to going in and out the windows and at night time while I sleep he feels as though he should be allowed to get outside through the narrow opening left by the open pane regardless of the time of day or the fact that he’s NEVER been allowed outside at night…
The thing is, he won’t fit through the gap and while he shows particular intelligence in attaining the top window by climbing up the louvres paw over paw he hasn’t figured out that no matter how often he attempts it he WILL NOT be able to get himself out. Neither has he got the message that no amount of attempting this feat has made me yield and open the window… (the phrase dumbass springs to mind).
Last night he tried it 4 times. If he could try it quietly I would sleep through… but the glass moves noisily in its frames and the cat bleats (as it were) in frustration and as you know, orientals are not the most meek of miaou-ers…
Now, gentle reader, you may make such a rational suggestion as ‘just shut the cat out of your bedroom at night’ to which I reply… I try this repeatedly… I get up, shut the door, wedge 1, 2 and sometimes even 3 shoes under the door… and the little bugger is so persistent he leaps at the door handle until the door unlatches and he pokes at the shoes and throws himself at the door until he gets enough of a gap thorough which he can wedge himself and he happily says hello. This is not a quiet business…
And then the process starts all over again.
You may then suggest that some behavioural modification ought to be undertaken… and I concur; the outworking of which has seen me go to bed with a water sprayer nestled on the window ledge which I discharge in his direction (and which he hates) whenever he tries it on. Again, he is so determined that this really only inhibits him briefly and he will watch me, waiting to see if I’m going to move towards the bottle and sometimes, even while I’m spraying the living daylights out of him, he’ll still give it a good go…
SO – and this is where the D is for Do comes in…
Today I decided enough was enough and that I was going to have to forego sleeping with the window cracked so I went to restore the window to its natural state -however, the window frame had got used to its new place and would not return to it’s former full upright position…
Oh BOTHER!
Now, if I were a soft, girly girl I might have despaired or prevailed upon VB man to apply some brute strength to my problem… But I’m a strong capable farmer’s daughter who doesn’t let a bit of dirt or brute force get in the way of her and a good night’s sleep.
So I hauled tools and after some dogged determination of my own involving 2 sets of pliers, a screwdriver a hammer and a few liberal doses of WD40 my louvre windows are now restored to their normal state.
And if the cat tries it on he’s bloody sleeping in the cat carrier tonight and I’m wearing earplugs so I can’t hear him squeal.