It's summer, and I'm in the south of France. I'm two weeks into a four week vacation in Servian, a small town in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France (you probably have no idea where that is though). My (bad) French is improving, and I've made friends with some of the kids living here. I've learned about the best cheese at the Thursday market, picked up on town happenings, and hung out with everyone in Place de Marche on Bastille Day (French independence day). Today, I'm eating a baguette and olives on the table outside.
We don't have a yard, because the house is essentially a 3-storey block made from stucco and concrete. It's like a cave, and there aren't many windows. The road we live on is too narrow for a car, and not exactly Ferrari material. The streets that are paved are bumpy and uneven, and telephone wires criss-cross in the air. Yet Servian's simple, idyllic setting creates an atmosphere you can't get anywhere else. There is a small garden on the sloping lot, and we grow grapes and parsley in the planter boxes.
Well, we're not eating the parsley tonight, since Minette has decided that she will sleep in it.
The house is close to a demolished property (aka Municipal Gardens) and plants have grown up there, along with several generations of Servian Cats. We get a lot of feral felines here, and over the last two weeks I've learned all their names and favourite spots to be scratched. One of them I have become especially fond of: A black and white cat, with green eyes, small paws and a long tail. I named her Minette. I knew that Minette was agile, but I had yet to learn the extent of her leaping abilities.
Anyway, I finish eating my baguette and take the plate inside. The house isn't air conditioned, and each level you go up is about twenty-five times hotter than the last. On the main level is a kitchen/dining room/living room, and a bathroom off a hallway. (It's not really a bathroom; more like a one metre space with a sink, toilet, and shower the size of an iPad basically crammed on top of each other. It's impossible to shower and not get the laundry machine wet, which is located in the hallway that leads to the bathroom. You actually have to squeeze yourself around the washer in order to get to the bathroom. Back to my story...) The bottom level has barely any windows and a fan, so it's only about 30° in there. Take the (dangerous) stairs to the second level, and you'll find no fans and still no air conditioning. This is where the bedrooms are, and it is nearly impossible to get to sleep on hot nights. On the third floor is a spare bedroom and living space with a sofa and desk. The room is bright, but there aren't any windows except for some skylights that you can open. It is absolutely ghastly in here during the summer. The temperatures must be almost 40°, and it has gotten so bad lately that my brother, Stefan and I actually started PAYING each other to go up there for a set amount of time as a dare. Five minutes? One euro. (You're probably wondering how this is relevant to the story. Here it is.)
The view of the Servian skyline (you need to stick your head out the skylight for this lovely panorama).
Today, there was nothing else to do, and we were bored, so for some reason Stefan and I decided to go up to the attic and see how long we could survive in there. Gasping in annoyance as we entered the room (who's idea was this?), I stand on the sofa and reach up to open the skylight. I pull the latch open and swing it towards me slightly, so there's a gap between the roof and the skylight. Fresh air whooshes in, and it's still hot and stuffy, but better than before. I plop down on the couch, and am about to get up to see if there's a fan hidden anywhere when Stefan yells, "Angie, Minette is flying!" I follow his pointed finger to the skylight, where a (flying) Minette is coming down for a landing, right on the skylight.
"Minette, NO!" I holler. This is a cute cat, but it's feral and I don't want it falling through our skylight. (One time, she got in my open window at two in the morning and we had to chase her out of the house. Since my room window is at least two metres off the ground, I don't know how she got up.) Even if the glass of the skylight doesn't break, Minette's momentum will probably cause the skylight to flip inwards when she lands, and she'll fall in. In a split second, I jump on the couch and push the skylight closed, just as our FLYING CAT lands on it with a whump. I stare at her, and she stares back at me with this rather quizzical look, like "seriously, I was about to make a perfect landing!"
I never will figure out exactly how Minette managed to get onto our roof, but I will remember my Feral Flying Cat experience for a long time.
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