Cats - an update

So, for those of you concerned about how our Cats-Prepare-For-Flight day went, I will tell you, and it has its poetic moments too!

First, we remained calm yesterday morning in the face of one cat being too clever to be duped into his cat carrier and vanishing over the garden fence. And in he trotted, just at the right minute, and was sufficiently impressed with my non-stressed demeanour that he allowed himself to be grabbed and bundled in.

Our first hurdle, with two wailing cats in their way-too-big British-Airways-approved cat carriers in the back of the car, was to find the office of the Jerusalem district vet during the 1.5 hours he turns up in the city every week. Inside the same building as the Israel Antiquities Authority, a very ancient structure itself, we waited as Mr District Vet was late, trying to keep the dog in front of us in the queue from hassling the cats, and all the time worrying how we would get the cats out of the cat carriers for the vet to check them and then back in.

We didn't have to worry. A lovely Brazilian man, he was far more interested in discussing the finer points of English spelling and saying how much he preferred British accents to Americans (he had problems understand some Texans recently). He peered at the cats sitting warily in their carriers, and then filled out the forms we needed, while telling us that in 9 years he had only seen a few people who were taking pets to England, despite the harsh quarantine. But rather than telling us off for putting our cats through that, he felt it showed that we really love them and we aren't prepared to abandon them. "Ah," he sighed. "Sometimes I wish all my neighbours were cats and dogs." Pause. "And my work colleagues too!" And then, as we stood up to leave, he gestured to the heavens and said: "If there is someone up there, he's smiling down on you." Well.

The cats safely back in the car, we grinned all the way down the motorway, or at least until the first crazy driver overtook on the inside and crossed 3 lanes of traffic. The cats didn't enjoy the journey either. And once in the airport, we got a bit lost in "Cargo City" (this, in a country of only 6 million people...) But I tracked down the British Airways office ("Ah, the cat lady!" they said) and from then on it went swimmingly. A room full of strangely polite and friendly Israeli men in BA attire peered into the cat carriers. "Isn't he big!" they said. "He's a tiger!" Zac sat, unperturbed. Or perhaps deeply traumatised, who knows? We didn't think he was so big. Maybe a little tall for his age.

I signed the forms and then the moment we had been dreading: transferring the cats from the carriers they'd fly in to their much smaller regular cat carriers so airport security could hold onto the bigger ones. "Stand back," I told the strangely polite and friendly Israeli men in BA attire. "We'll give you privacy," they said seriously. And yet...

.... we put one cat carrier facing the other, and both cats just quietly strolled from one to the other.

Not a wail. Nothing.

Well, relief. The friendly BA men seemed a little sad at the lack of drama. They assured us they'd watch the cats as we took the big carriers to security. And as we left the room, I saw one of them peer down into Zac's carrier and say "Meow." That made my day!

Security was fine, the cats were totally peaceful all the way home, and when we let them out of their cages there were no dirty looks, no punishing hours-long absences. As if all was normal. It wasn't until a few hours later, at our wonderful friends J & H's glorious wedding, that J and I confessed that we only realized afterwards how much we'd been stressed about it all! The cats, it seemed, had no problem at all.

Next week: the cats on the aeroplane. Fingers crossed they enjoy their in flight entertainment and those little nuts they give out with the drinks.