A Harrowing Experience

“He fell! He fell! He fell!” I yelled as I ran for the curving staircase from our 2nd-story bedroom down to the living room. 

Have you ever wondered what you would do in an emergency? That’s what I did. Yell to alert the others in the house and race in slow motion to the door to the outside. 

We arrived home today after three nights away. The kitten was in a tizzy - running through the house, jumping over furniture. 

He settled down for a bit as we relaxed after our drive. When I began to prepare for bed, he hopped onto the window sill. 

It made me nervous, but cats all over France hang out on balconies, window sills and evening roofs. In France, windows don’t have screens. That’s how we lean out to close our shutters at night and open them in the morning. 

As I pulled back the cover on our bed, I noticed the cat  watching something outside — a bird, a fly, a lizard. He scurried to one side of the ledge, then the other. 

“Louis!” I cautioned and he reared up on his hind legs to try to bat at something before he tipped over and disappeared head first to the concrete patio below. 

I didn’t stick my head out the window to see what happened, just ran for the stairs yelling as I went. 

Grace and Jack followed hot on my heels, but Earl was already downstairs. He opened the kitchen door and the kitten zoomed inside and hid behind a couch while everyone tried to slow their heart rates. 

We moved the couch and Jack extracted the scared kitten. Everything seemed intact. 

We began to realize that our 15-week-old kitten has fallen from a second-story window to a concrete patio and survived. 

We have to figure out how to put a screen in because I’m afraid with his kitten short term memory, he might continue to do the same thing tomorrow - back on the ledge, tempted by things that move and buzz or chirp. 

I’m so grateful he’s okay. 

Dreaming of France -- Cats in France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

We are big cat lovers at our house, so even when we are traveling, we are on the lookout for cute cats. There was no shortage of them in France.
This stocky gray fellow on the wall was in Mireval, not too far from Montpelier, where we stayed as we explored part of Languedoc-Roussillon.

One day I explored in Mireval and found another bakery. I also found this black and white cat near the church.

This guy was giving himself a bath with a nice view of red roof tiles.

And this chunky cat safely peered out over the world from the safety of his balcony. 

Here's a cafe cat from Quillan, which is where we stayed the second half of our trip. 

This cat was laying in a courtyard in Caunes-Minervois, a place where I now know that I should have eaten at the hotel. 

And here's another cat in Caunes-Minervois, pretending he's in the jungle and that we can't see him. 

I'm sure I have more France cat pictures, but I'll save them for another day now that I'm home with  my own cats. 

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