Yesterday morning, our youngest cat, Bella, caught her first bird (that we know of). I say 'caught', but to be honest it was a fledgling blackbird which had probably fallen out of the nest, and it couldn't take off to get away.
Despite my yelling and manic waving, the young bird hopped towards the bushes, no doubt assuming safety there, followed quickly by Bella, and looked on by our other cat, Zac, who was probably wondering how the heck Bella managed to finally get a bird all to herself.
I slammed the slider (well, slid it shut gently - you can never be too careful with large glass panels), and grumped about cats being killers.
And then I got rather annoyed at the darn bird! I mean - why would you leave the nest if you can't fly??
That didn't last long, as it dawned on me (despite my anger at natural feline behaviour), that you really can't learn to fly until you actually leave the comfort of your warm, cosy nest.
**
Later on, I received a text saying that our eldest daughter's boyfriend had passed his restricted driver's license, and that she wanted him to give her a lift home from work.
My immediate reaction was "Aaargh!!" or something similar.
According to their youthful wisdom, it was 'OK' for a restricted driver to give their partner a lift home, and whilst the gospel of Wikipedia suggested this was correct, I decided to do some more research.
NZ Driving Law states that a person under a restricted license is not allowed to drive with anyone who doesn't have a full license (and must have held it for a minimum of two years), unless they are a dependant, partner, or spouse. Drilling down further, 'partner' means in a civil union or de facto - neither of which apply in the case of the teenagers in question.
Rather than say "No - you can't be a passenger in your boyfriend's car - what are you? Crazy?", we were able to make the law the bad guy, and reiterate that if there was any accident, she wouldn't be covered, and in all probability, neither would he. The fact that 'all their friends' do it all the time wasn't going to come into the discussion - it has to be her choice.
I'm not sure how she'll deal with this. I guess we'll find out in the next few days when the opportunity of a lift arises.
But I did think about her leaving the nest, and how we are hopefully giving her some of the tools to cope with her new environment when the time comes.
Giving her wings, so to speak.
Oh come on - you knew it was coming!
