The long weekend kind of snuck up on me. I didn’t realise it was Easter weekend until my sister contacted me earlier in the week to say she could come round for the bank holiday if I was free. It was pretty awesome to realise I would have four days off work. Friday and Saturday I switched between chilling out and cleaning. I’d been feeling aweful all last week- headache – and so appreciated the rest and the fact I could slowly go through my chores, no rush. Well, apart from the fact my sister was coming on Sunday. She turned up around lunch on Sunday. We ate, a simple lunch of butternut soup and bread, then we went to a local park for a walk. Of course, the weather was aweful, cold and rainy, and our little walk was fairly short, both of us eager to get inside. We retreated back to mine and spent the rest of the day watching all of Michael McIntyre’s stand up dvds- which were very funny- and ordered takeaway for supper. (Vegan junkfood, yum.)
Today the weather was even worse – as it had snowed overnight. Is it not typical? Finally time off work and there’s snow. My sister and I headed out anyway as I had booked lunch. We shopped a bit then went to lunch. At a cat cafe. Yep, I finally got to go to a cat cafe. One opened at my old city just before I left so I never really had the chance to go. So when one opened in my new city I was determined to experience it. Food and cats – what could be better? It was my sister’s birthday recently so I thought it would be the perfect surprise celebration for her. (She loves cats too.) Of course, she figured it out before we got there. I’d told her I had a surprise for her birthday and to come round sometime for it. But on Sunday she asks me casually if we’re going to the cat cafe. She cannot be fooled :(
She was still excited though and happy I’d thought of it. We had an hour’s slot. Enough to have lunch and wander around the cafe several times trying to find cats, and trying to get them to approach us. Only once we had food did any of them come close to us. Typical cats. There were many of them and they were adorable but of course more interested in chilling out and doing their own thing than anything else. Just being there, and occasionally succeeding at petting the kitties was enough though. The whole atmosphere of the place was just wonderful- with how they’d designed it, all comfy armchairs, cat and local scenery themed decor, and cat towers and mini waterfalls they could drink from, and cat shelves and wooden walkways between then, but also so many different kinds of people, all going loopy over these cats no matter what age or how they looked or whatever. The food was yummy too and they had wonderfully named mocktails – I had a kitty floss and my sister had a cattitude. It was, basically, awesome. And a perfect indoor activity too. So nice to be out the cold and the rain and spend an hour in a room full of cats with my sister. (my favourite animal and my favourite person, respectively.) We shopped a bit more then headed home. Thankfully despite overnight snow it rained all day so it was still miserable weather but easy to drive at least.
My sister went home and then I spent my evening not doing very much, and feeling a little nervous about work tommorow. It’s easy to fall into this altogether more pleasant routine – sleeping late, idling the day away, doing the bare minimum, eating too much Easter chocolate etc.
Whenever I move to a new place I always do my best to find out where the cats are, and which ones are friendly. In my last house there were three cats down the road adjacent to my house, and I’d pass them by on my way to/from the bus stop and spend a little…fine a lot of time petting them and letting them climb all over me, because yes, I would sit down on the curb just to be with them for a time. In my new neighbourhood I sourced three cats all very close to me – two gingers and a black cat. The black cat is rarely out, and one of the gingers cat even harder to see, but that left one ginger cat, who was very friendly and was often out and about when I was. I’d see him to/from work and he would let me pet him. Sometimes he’d follow me to my door and show interest in being let in, but I never let him in and he never really pushed for it. It was fine. 
