The mouse chaser

During the late autumn last year I started "seeing things" in the house, and was wondering if there was something seriously wrong with me. I saw small moving shadows at the corner of my eye, sometimes several times a day. After a while I realised the truth could be that I was actually seeing something real.

When I asked my husband if he thought we could have mice in the house, he confirmed "yes, absolutely".

We spent a weekend chasing mice, setting up traps and all the things you need to do, and they seemed to come out of the woodwork - whenever we caught one, there was always another one, or two.

When I told my personal trainer about this, his comment was very clear - the only solution is a cat.

I wasn't up to that at all. The thing is, I love cats. We had a cat with us from Sweden, a female named Ester. She was a superb hunter and a very peculiar personality. But in 2021 she got sick with kidney failure and was a week in the hospital, then she came home and lived happily two more years.

But she got sick again, and that time she didn't recover, and in June 2023 we had to make the decision to let her go. That was one of the hardest years of my life (for many more reasons than, but also including, the death of Ester) and I still cry when I think of that evening. After this, I didn't want more pets. I couldn't bear getting into a similar situation again, and also saw the many benefits of not having pets, particularly when it comes to travelling.

But then the mouse situation happened, and we realised that the inconveniences with a pet are much better than having to chase mice and have them run around the house and nibble on things. And it IS nice to have a cat. You know the saying... a house without a cat is just a house.

To begin with, it was very unclear whether we would get a cat within any reasonable future. My personal trainer actually had kittens, but for a long time he didn't know if there were any "unbooked". But then on Christmas Eve he texted me to say there was a female tabby kitten available.

So on the Saturday after Christmas we collected Elsa, 8 weeks old.

We didn't have a name for her to begin with, and I realise that Elsa was too easy to mix up with Ester, especially since she's so similar to Ester too. But the name suited her so well.

She's a typical kitten, more curious than what's good for her, she's all over the place playing and exploring, and she's also the most social and easy-going cat we've had.

And - with the arrival of Elsa, I've solved the problem of having no interesting photo subjects in the winter. The only problem is that it's almost impossible to photograph her when she's awake. She's like a bumblebee - very fast moving and rarely stays in one place for long.

She quickly started showing good potential for mouse hunting:

She's also started some humble bird watching.

Otherwise she's generally exploring the house, doing her mouse hunting training, being all cute and cuddly, and she drives us crazy at bedtime. But she's good company and gives us something nice to focus on during these dark times, and keeps my camera busy too.

Evenings often look like this:

And sure, life just got more complicated, but much cosier too.