June was such a whirlwind month, what with returning from the UK the day before the release of my book, and so I’m only now sorting through all the photos from my trip with my mom. It was a wonderful trip! I won’t bore you with all my photos of cathedrals in England and the beautiful Welsh coastline, but I do have one amusing story to share from our stay in Bampton, a charming little town near Oxford.
Bampton was neat—we didn’t know anything about it when we decided to stay there, but it turned out to have an incredibly old church, several friendly pubs, and many footpaths that cut through fields.
My mom and I stayed in a very comfortable bed & breakfast called Wheelgate House.
The morning after our first night’s stay there, I was woken up by a scratching noise coming from under my bed. At first I thought it was coming from the living room on the floor below (maybe someone was doing some work on the ceiling), but it persisted and it didn’t take long for me to be fully awake and standing on the opposite side of the room. Something was under the bed!
The scratching got louder, and after a few seconds, the bed skirt started to move. I freaked and jumped on the other bed with my mom. The scratching was loud enough that it would have had to be a very large mouse or other bigger-sized animal, like some kind of English version of an opossum.
Finally something emerged from under the bed, and it was… the cutest fluffy orange cat! It bolted for the door, which I had by this time opened. Mom and I breathed a sigh of relief, but then the bed skirt started to move again! And this time out came… an identical fluffy orange cat! It ran right out the door after its friend.
That was when we remembered hearing that the owner of the B&B had two cats that were supposed to stay outside in the garden. The poor things must have snuck into the house at some point and hid under the bed. Then we had had the door closed all night, without them making a peep. They were obviously not used to being inside with people.
It was a very memorable start to the day! The rest of our trip was great too, but not quite as hilarious.
That’s a very cute story and your mom is pretty cute too!
What a cute B&B!! And a cute story to match, I would be scared out of my mind if something was scratching under my bed!!
haha… haven’t spied a possum in the uk yet! …but i love ginger cats ^..^
lolcats, indeed! my sister tells me orange cats are commonly regarded as a bit on the slow side in the uk… guess these two won’t change that image! ;D
That’s so funny about orange cats, Joan. I guess our orange guys probably wouldn’t score the highest on a kitty IQ test, but they also don’t seem to be any duller than the average cat, either!
LOL! I must say that I would have freaked out and probably bolted out of the room if I heard mysterious noises and bumping from under my bed! Good thing it was cute cats instead of something more scary!