Exploring Outside

Back in our early kittenhood, our mother taught us about 'outside'. Most of outside does not have any roof, this is how we know the difference. The walls look different, too, and we can go a lot further away. Our mother told us where we could go, and called us in when we tried to explore further. There are lots of interesting things outside.

When we moved to our current home, we didn't think there was any outside at first. Then we learned about 'the balcony', which is sort of like outside, with some unusual toys and lots of space, but we can't get from there to the real outside with other humans, and plants, and cars.

For a while our humans let us outside for a short time when they were eating in the middle of the day. They said it was less trouble than pushing us off the table all the time. We liked going outside very much, but one day I went through an open door, and met a human who didn't seem to like me very much. He shouted a lot, and I hid under a convenient bed. One of my humans came to find me, and said that perhaps we should stay inside for a while longer.

Today, they decided to let us go outside again. The door in the room where they eat is at the top of a strange staircase that goes around in curves, so we hurried down, in case they changed their minds. I was confused to see some walls at the bottom, and stopped to sniff:

Then I saw a plant with lots of lovely long bits to pat and play with:

I was having fun when one of my humans came down, and I was afraid she might pick me up to take me inside again, so I ran away, and around another bit of wall to a place where my humans don't seem to want to go. There was a white car there, and some buckets and plants - so many things to explore:

My sister Joan followed me - she is not so adventurous as me, but she doesn't like to be on her own. She sniffed the car:

Then she sniffed at some plants, and a bucket.

Then our other human came down and called to us. He said we shouldn't go into the 'neighbour's yard'. I thought the neighbour's yard was somewhere else. But maybe it's lots of places. I didn't want to be picked up and taken inside, and I thought I should set a good example to Joan, so I came out of there, and went round to another big place, a bit like the balcony, but with more places to escape to.

I hadn't been there long when I saw something very exciting: 

It smelled like a bird, but it didn't fly away. It was hard to carry in my mouth, but it blew around a bit in the wind. My human was there but he just watched, sometimes putting a shiny box thing in front of his face:

I had a lot of fun, although I realised that Joan was no longer there. I discovered later that she had lost me, so she went back up the outside stairs to find the female human. Joan would rather stay inside with people - even if they're only human - than play on her own.

I knew it was too good to last.

Just as I was thinking of doing some more exploring, perhaps into the other neighbour's yard, the human picked me up and took me back inside.