I think I've discovered a new source of annoyance that ranks up there with neighbours who leave their backyard lights on for no reason, cloudy nights after clear daylight skies and ice cream trucks playing music through incredibly bad sound systems.
This new distraction is a four letter word: Cats.
After being sick with the flu and having a cloudy night last night, I finally got the chance to get outside and log some time observing. I figured I'd do some sketching while I had the chance. The sky was unusually dark so I figured that tonight would be a relatively good night, other conditions permitting. After setting things up (then going back inside because I forgot my watch... then going back again for my pencil... and again for eyepieces) and getting everything aligned, I prepared for a bit of observing.
Next thing I hear is a meow.
Now this in of itself isn't particularly disturbing; we own a cat who likes to patrol (and I do mean PATROL) the roof of the house at night (how he gets up there or outside is a mystery to me given how fat he is), so I assumed that this was simply our cat walking around and meowing at me for some reason.
But then it happened again. It was coming from next door, who also apparently have a cat. And then it happened again. And again. And again! All through the observing session this cat meowed for all it was worth, including moving around the yard next door so that it came from a different direction each time. When the surrounding area is mostly silent, it became the biggest distraction I've ever faced while observing. And it drove me up the wall.
Still, I did my sketches and tried my best to ignore it. By "tried" I mean refrained from jumping the fence to scare it away so it would shut up. The worst was yet to come.
I was just finishing a final sketch when the cat next door suddenly let out a real loud wailing noise. The kind of noise that cats make when they fight.
I jumped a foot into the air. My hand, holding a pencil still on the paper, also jumped a foot in every direction. With the pencil still on the page.
Long story short, I've got a heavy, dark scribble all over my sketches, totally ruining them. After putting up with the meowing, the cold and coughing inbetween trying to sketch, my sketches are ruined and my night was more or less a waste. I swore loudly and started packing things up because my patience had finally given way and I was freezing cold. The cat next door shut up and scampered off somewhere else. Incidentally MY cat also happens to be missing so I'm assuming that it went next door and started fighting.
In future, I'm going to remove all cats from my observing area by leaving trails of cat crunchies, like the ones Whiskers makes or something... and I'll leave it open juuuust a bit so that they can see the goodies but can't get to them without some hard work. Hopefully that'll keep them away. Or possibly create some sort of competition to see who gets the right to lay claim the prize of cat crunchies.
Incidentally, if anybody wants to buy a cat, I'm more than willing to sell one
