My shadow

I decided today that seeing as the sun was out and I didn’t feel like my fingers were going to drop off from the cold, I would go for a walk.

I really enjoy walking, especially when I have music to listen to and a new place to explore. So I set off down the road, only to turn around and see my little, orange kitten following about ten metres behind me with a purposeful trot. When he noticed that I stopped and was looking at him, he broke into one of those bouncy runs that kittens do sometimes when they’re happy.

“Oh Tonka,” I said, shaking my head at him, “this isn’t an adventure for you, you’ll get lost.”

I led him back to the house, and set off again. It wasn’t long before I looked back and saw that little ball of ginger fur following. After a moment, he veered off the footpath and down a neighbours driveway, intent on exploring this foreign land. I shrugged and left him to it, figuring that he’d be able to find his way home from there. I continued down the road and around a corner before I started to worry. What if he didn’t find his way home? He’d only been allowed outside for a few days – what if he got lost because he didn’t know the area well enough? With a sigh, I turned around and headed back.

When I rounded the corner, I saw him down another driveway, with his tail all fluffed up. He’d obviously tried to follow me again and had gotten frightened by the cars and people going past. As soon as he saw me he came bounding joyfully over, stopping to cower whenever a car zoomed past on the road. His little tail was fluffed up as big as it would go, and his eyes were wide.

I coaxed him back home and put him in the backyard, where he immediately began to amuse himself with a fern. Satisfied that he was too preoccupied to try follow me again, I finally left to go on my walk, kittenless this time.

Our awesome, creepy house

When Sacha and I first moved into our new flat a couple of weeks ago, I went for a little wander around the property. It’s a pretty cool little place: It has a big long deck right across the back, a cute little gully out the back, and something that I think is meant to be a pond. Needs a bit of a clean up though.

The almost pond.

Inside the house we have about a million and one light switches, some of which we can’t figure out turn on what lights. I have a light in my wardrobe, but the switch for it is nowhere to be found. Sacha has seven light switches in her bedroom alone. It’s lightswitchtopia. (I just went around and counted – we have 27 light switches.)

I have also made an exciting discovery. About five minutes ago I went for a wander to check out the little gully I mentioned. Turns out it backs out onto a creek. A creek!

Here’s the weird part about the house, though. In my casual wanderings, I found the little door that lets me get underneath the house. I went in, and this is what I saw.

There were two walls covered in photos of shoes. It was utterly bizarre, and it still creeps me out a little bit. Several people have suggested that somebody with a shoe fetish used to live here, or someone who was part of a shoe cult. Someone else said that maybe it was a murderer who used to take people’s shoes after they killed them. While I don’t think it would be a shoe-stealing murderer, my flatmate may be leaning towards some kind of murderer hypothesis, considering these alarming scratches in the wall above the head of her bed.

So yeah, there’s that. Apart from those two chilling aspects, and the fact that our house creaks pretty much nonstop, it’s a really nice place, and I’m really enjoying it. Except for the fact that it’s ridiculously cold. I’m trying to stop having the heater going all the time and instead rely on my hot water bottle to save power. Let’s see how it goes.