I woke this morning to what looked like 3-4 inches of snow. Where I live, in West Lancashire, this is very rare. We hardly ever get snow, and when we do, it usually causes chaos as we’re all so unprepared for it.
At 6am I found myself joining everyone else on the avenue, standing around outside, looking bewildered as a few of the brave attempted to get out of their drives and onto the main road. You see, the problem is, our avenue is a ‘cul-de-sac’ on a hill, which you have to drive up, in order to get out!
After watching three or four attempts, I decided I would wait an hour or so before starting my journey, and went home to let the cats out for a play in the snow.
Softies and snow leopards
As the door opened and the icy blast of air rushed in, one of them (female tabby) went straight out and began prowling through the snow. She looked gorgeous as the big flakes settled on her fur. If she’d had spots, she would have looked like a snow leopard cub. I watched as she stepped forward, carefully testing the ground with each paw.
The other one (jet black male) jumped out, stopped dead, then jumped straight back in again. I laughed at him – he’s always been a bit of a softie – but then I wondered if maybe he had a bit more sense than us humans, trying to get our cars on the road.
Instinct
Cats don’t really make decisions. They don’t sit and ponder things through like we do. When ours decided he wasn’t going to go out, it was an instinctive thing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could operate more instinctively from time to time, and always get things right, like a cat does?
Well, every instinct I had was telling me not to attempt the journey, so I decided to follow my cat’s lead and stay in for the day.
As it turns out, this was a sound decision, as the snow hasn’t stopped since, and the Met Office web site predicts it will affect most parts of the country (confirmed by Twitter trending the topic #uksnow).
Next time I need travel advice, I’ll ask my cat first.
