Patience Pays

Let me tell you about Minnie.

Minnie is so named because she was the tiniest kitten at eight weeks old. She used to crawl up the bed and curl up between our pillows, and Husband and I would lie there in terrified wakefulness in case we rolled over and crushed her.

In adulthood, Minnie is less mini. Her legs have remained short, but her body is long, and she's quite a substantial young kitty. She's a confirmed indoor pet, being a complete scaredy cat about the Great Outdoors (well, there's loud rumbling things and dogs and wet stuff falling from the sky!), but she was also the apprentice of our outdoor-loving and oft-lamented Piggy-Kitty (maysherestinpeace) who was an inveterate hunter.

With me so far?

Now, our house is old, and backs onto a farmyard. Therefore, despite our four cats, and the twenty odd feral ones that live on the farm, we have mice. We never see them, but they lurk beneath the floorboards and behind the skirting boards. There's one that visits the kitchen, although it doesn't appear to eat anything there. We only know of its presence because of the occasional 'ha-ha you can't get me!' poops he leaves to taunt the cats.

The mice drive Minnie insane.

She can hear them scritching behind the walls and under the floors, and she spends hours every day and night crouched by the skirting board, ears cocked and whiskers bristling, listening with every fibre of her being, waiting, hoping, praying for the chance... just once!... to catch one.

This morning I received a text from Husband that read:- Months of patience has finally paid off. Minnie got her mouse!

I'm so proud!

Through patience and dilligence and talent, my little kitty has achieved her goal.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

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Actually, there's two, and the second lesson is about positive thinking.

I posted a little while ago about gratitude, and had cause to be grateful and stunned yet again barely 24 hours later. When good things like that start happening to you, you start to expect them. And, expecting them, you find good things in the strangest places, and rejoice in the things you find.

Since I'm currently thinking so positively, Minnie's success ranks as another good thing, and has made my day for me!

Someone's getting tuna for supper...