The Great Outdoors

Cat leashes are great value: for just 9.99 you get a zen lesson and a course in philosophy. Because you don't walk a cat, the cat walks you, and nothing will make you question your life and existence like standing around waiting for a small ball of fur to decide if you're allowed to take two steps forward or not. Then two steps backward a few minutes later.

First off: Batman has an easier time getting the Joker into a straightjacket than I do getting Neutrino into his harness. He fights literally tooth and nail and after another three harnessings, I'll either have bulletproof skin or be typing these blogs with my toes. He twists and spins like an three fighting snakes in a cat suit, and if you see the harness on backwards in the images below please understand: I put it on right to begin with, and didn't have enough hands left to reset it.

Once safely ensnared Neutrino channels the spirit of the sulking four year old and simply refuses to move. This leads to hilarious stop-starting when he gets the chance to fulfil his life's dream of dashing out the door the instant it's open, then remembering he's refusing to move again.

In the great outdoors our unstoppable cat, master of all he surveys and Stranger To Fear, suddenly acts like a lone soldier stranded behind enemy lines with only a tube of toothpaste. He drops to the ground like he just heard four atomic bombs - even when walking he keeps lower than a limbo-dancing earthworm sneaking up on an early bird in a machine gun nest.

Neutrino's strategy of finding the corner of the entire outside world and hiding in it

You can't tell from the photo, but he's posed like someone watching fourteen invading airforces flying over a minefield

He advances along the edges of everything. Imagine James Bond sneaking up on a secret base of Tom Clancy characters and you'll have the idea, slinking from corner to cover with occasional pauses to check for enemy agents.

When we adopted him we were told he was a new kitten, but I'm starting to think that was a cover story for a KGB defector. There are people in witness protection hiding from the mafia less fearful than this cat.

But then: Enemies!

Multiple contacts inbound!

Note how the grey cat has cunningly camoflagued himself while seizing the high ground

There are two domestic cats owned by someone on the ground floor. They're the softest, fluffiest, most placid cats you've ever seen, popular and purring with everyone who walks by, so of course Neutrino somehow triggers their combat mode at first sight from five meters away.

They all started mooching towards the bush, which I couldn't let happen:

I replanted Neutrino in the open green space - which apparently gave him an overwhelming flanking advantage against two older cats twice his size, as they retreated!

We'll get you next time, Neutrino. NEXT TIIIIIIME!

(Excuse the blurriness, but they ran away SO FAST this is the only shot I could get)

Victory!