Blacky the wall cat

Our first cat we called Blacky. While we were building our house we always took her with us to the building site, so she could explore the growing house. We also did this when we were tiling the bathroom. We had nearly finished, and wanted to go to bed at 2pm.

Blacky had gone!
We could hear her miaow though, so we searched the house, but - nothing. We started again, then as we came near the bathroom the miaow became louder. Right in the bathroom the noise was very distinct - but alas no cat!

We called...... silence. We walked away........ "Miaow !".

At last we could identify where the noise came from, she called from behind a wall. Now I must explain to you, that we have a wooden house with hollow walls. No problem at all, because all the walls are tightly sealed, except for one spot. The top edge had an opening or 14 by 50 cm, inside there was no beam, it went straight down, 250 cm deep. Exactly this spot the cat had found, and of course had to explore what was in there.

Now what could we possibly do?
We let down a small wooden plank on a rope. Smart Blacky did the right thing, and climbed on. We could pull her up - about 20 cm, no more. So we tried again, and again, and again... it wouldn't work.
Finally we had to cut a hole in the wall, hoping all the time that Blacky would duck down and avoid being hit by the saw. We could not make the hole too high up because we had to be able to pull her out.
Finally it worked. As we pulled her out she was covered over and over in sawdust, she was more a 'Brownie' than a 'Blacky'.
She was very happy to have come out of her prison, but also very nervous. We had to calm her down, and with some 'goodies' we managed to do just that. Of course no one could sleep that night.

Next morning the tradesmen had a good laugh!
For some time to come Blacky always made a detour around the bathroom.