Wood collecting, or the adventures of Beeps the cat

Despite last Sunday's adverse conditions we managed a sizeable wood collection. However, given this last week's weather - a mixture of rain, sleet, hail, snow and more rain - we now have snow on the mountains again - most of it had been used by the time the sun appeared today for the first time in a week. So more was needed. It's set to rain for the next week: being lazy today was not an option.

We get our firewood from a large field behind the house which is half wooded, and we're often accompanied on these collection trips by Beeps. She's a lovely, but quite strange, cat. Black cats are seen in Asturias, especially in rural areas, as undesirable creatures and a female one is even worse. They are often not treated particularly well. We're not sure what had happened to her before she appeared in our village at about four months old but she's always been very nervous, although much, much happier than she used to be.

If she can overcome her fears, she adores attention. Her favourite activity is to lie with all four paws in the air while you rub her belly - this is very strange for such an nervous feline as letting you near their tum is the ultimate sign of trust in a cat. Another funny habit is to follow me around - everywhere: she's currently curled into a ball on the window ledge watching me type and I'm never lonely while I'm gardening; I can always catch a black silhouette out of the corner of my eye if she's not romping directly in front of me. When we go up to the land above the house for a walk we have to sneak out without her seeing, otherwise she'll follow us all the way up there, mewing as we go as if to let us know she's still there and we're not to leave her. If we do make her go back - which is not always possible as she's normally desperate not to be left behind -
she'll sit and quite literally yowl for ages. She followed us today on our wood hunt, despite the neighbour's dogs being out and about and having to sneak past them to get to us in the field. We heard her from a distance, mewing to let us know she was on her way, trotting with her tail up to keep us company. It was very cute watching her small black form growing larger as she made her way across the field, calling to us. On every trip she'll sit and watch as we get the wood together (sometimes she explores and hides in old tree trunks) and then follow us back and forth across the field as we drag it housewards, complaining if she gets deserted and stopping to let us catch up if she runs ahead. If I'm very lucky she'll want to be picked up and will then wrap herself around my neck and purr loudly into my ear. There's something very soothing about a cat's purr, so when she does that I'm quite as content as she is.