And She Is Now Back!

I got woken at 5am by a very loud and gravelly pur.

Phew! She has no broken limbs, is very hungry but hasn't had time to lose weight, and is purring fit to burst. I have no idea where she's been or why she turned up now, but I've never been happier about broken sleep in my life.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Bast, St Francis and any other deity or saint or helped in this. And a big cheers to the SPCA who weren't able help to me in particular but save many pets in general and were friendly and helpful in advice. Also three cheers to the National Pet Database at http://www.petsonthenet.co.nz/.

Steph

...And She Is Now Missing.

She seemed pretty happy to be home, but around 1am I realised that the reason she was so restive was an inability to get out of the house owing to my flatmate locking the catdoor. So I put her outside and realised an hour later that the catdoor was locked from the inside as well so she hadn't been able to get back in. But now no cat, her breakfast is untouched and the neighbours who are home haven't seen her. My new flatmate, Mark, thinks he heard the catdoor flap and the sound of feet earlier today, but that could have been the neighbour's cat.

This is extremely uncharacteristic behaviour and I am worried. She's not really the type to storm off because of a snit. The only good sign so far is no corpses on the road.

*%$&^%$

Stephanie

I Sprang My Cat From Quod Today...

And boy did she create hell about being in the car again. She's now purring lots and obsessively patrolling the house, which I choose to interpret as being glad to be home.

Steph

I'm Looking For Some Research Help

Hi all,

I have a favour to ask. In my (absolutely splendiferously awesome) course on Children's Fantasy mentioned in my previous post, we have started studying the Chronicles of Earthsea. It turns out that my attitude to this particular course is to encourage my lecturers to run in fear from my opinions, basically because I know the set texts pretty well so I'm trying to wring the last drop of meaning out of them. So far my lecturers seem to know the books even better than I do, so I probably won't win, but I'm going to have fun trying. ;-)
Anyway, on to the favour. The Earthsea books are absolutely reeking with plant references, particularly in the wood that the wizards' staffs are made of. For some of them (yew, rowan, oak etc) I'm passably familiar with the pagan symbolism associated with them, but, while I have some reference texts, they're buried at the bottom of seven boxes of books. Can anyone out there suggest some good internet resources and books that the public and university libraries are likely to have?
Thanks,
Steph

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What I can pull out of memory so far (I'm treating this as a scratchpad, sorry for any errors):
Yew: Ged, the second Master Summoner, planted in graveyards, used for bows, protection from the dead, immortality
Rowan: Lebannen, protection from magic, the berries make a pentagram and I know there's heaps more
Oak: Ogion
Olive: Master Healer
Aspen: the evil wizard in Tehanu
Alder: Tenar
Hazel: Therru
The Immanent Grove is comprised of oaks, willows, chestnuts, ashes and tall evergreens, (Dragonfly, p237) plus the Tree of the Grove which is a bit like an oak and a bit like a chestnut and only grows there.