Cat Daddy and I are back from Iceland, and we were lucky enough to land just before Storm Eunice hit. If you have never been to Iceland, I highly recommend it; it’s the most exquisite, enchanting place. I have learned that a single ten-minute mud mask at the Blue Lagoon can miraculously erase several days of vodka and poor sleep from your face. And Cat Daddy has learned not to stand too close to active geysers.

After reading that Reykjavik’s streets were full of cats, I had hoped to get my feline fix that way during our Roi-free week. However, a huge snow blizzard hit on the day of our arrival so, as you can imagine, the cats stayed indoors. The same snow blizzard meant that we didn’t see the Northern Lights, but this gives us an excuse to go back again.

The closest we came to any cats (Cat Daddy: “That’s not actually why we went, by the way”) was reading about a demonic cat of Icelandic legend called the Jólakötturinn, which is said to walk the earth on Christmas Eve, intent on devouring anyone who isn’t, erm, wearing new clothes. Luckily, since it’s February, we were in no danger of bumping into this beast, but we were somewhat unsettled to discover when Googling pictures of it, that most of them looked like slightly more pleasant versions of Sa Maj:

Apart from one or two screaming incidents, Louis Catorze behaved very well indeed during our absence and was sweet and affectionate towards his chat-sitteurs. In fact, he didn’t even say hello to us when we came home, choosing instead to remain with one of his chat-sitteurs on her work Zoom call. He then followed her outside when she went to vape, walking straight past us.

(Incidentally, he wasn’t sulking that we’d left him. He doesn’t care anywhere near enough to bother doing that.)

These were the scenes at Le Château during our absence: