Cat Attack

I've just had the fright of my life this afternoon.  I've spent all weekend in the studio working on my own as Richard has taken the little monsters away so I could work.  The house is amazingly quiet and I'm not used to it.  I used to be a quiet person until we had more than one child.  Our house is generally very noisy.  To take advantage of the lovely weather and the first real chance this year, I left the back door open to air the house whilst I was working upstairs.  When I came down to make a coffee, something moved in the kitchen.  I jumped and yes, I'm sorry to admit, I screamed, or rather squealed.  Rather pathetic, I know.  It was one of our neighbour's cats jumping up onto a bench and smashing Richard's precious seedlings at the other side of the room.  I'm not sure who was more panicked. 
I got a grip of myself - it wasn't an alient invader, just a scared and trapped cat and tried to work my way over to it to get it out, talking to it a calming voice, feeling rather silly for screaming.  Eventually I got in a position it could run past me and out the door.  It took ages for my heartbeat to get back down to normal levels.
So next time I am working upstairs in the studio, I know not to leave the back door open for nosy cats, although I think after the fright the cat got, it won't be back here in a hurry.  It was almost as bad as the time when we were having work done on our old house and a cat crept in during the night and I woke up to something strange on my feet...
Maybe this is why our only pets are our new tropical fish.  As I keep saying looking after the kids is more than enough work for me!