Sometimes your surrogate grandmother turns out to be a kitten killer.

For now, let's call her "Gertie." Something tells me that she's not the blog reading type of modern girl, but one never knows. Apparently there are lots of things I didn't know about Gertie.

Imagine, if you will, a lovely, lovely older lady who, after a lifetime of dairy farming, chooses to work part time in a small chocolate factory. Formerly a yogurt and cheese shop, she's stayed through the change of ownership and chosen to keep active by learning all about the variety of delicious goods that have been made in this unassuming little farm shed for a bit over a decade now. Incredibly efficient, she kindly chides you when you don't keep up with her experienced pace and then launches into a tangentially related 20 minute story about her life (only a small portion of which you catch, seeing how the Kiwi grandma accent is the hardest of all dialects to understand). When lunchtime rolls around, she sits, not in a chair at the picnic table like those half or one quarter her age, but rather on a tree stump which, with her already petite stature, puts her a good head or 2 shorter than everyone else at the table. Pretty good candidate for vacation grandmother surrogate, right? That's what I thought. But, unfortunately, Gertie had some skeletons in her closet. Like, real ones. Of the baby cat variety.

One of the most intriguing characters in our new home was the cat known as Huscheli Wuscheli. Wuscheli being Swiss German for disheveled hair and something good to snuggle (I'm pretty sure I've got that right); Huscheli Wuscheli the First being our host's childhood teddy bear. Born without a tail but with fluffy brown fur on his hind legs and a frolicsome nature, he resembles nothing more than a dancing circus bear in knickers. But not that sad.

What IS sad was the fate of his sister. Our hosts were telling us H. Wuscheli's story over dinner one night and I guess that whatever caused him to be born tailless also gave him digestive issues. And when it was discovered that his sister was a bit worse off in both areas (tail and digestion), where did they send her? Not to the vet, but to Gertie. Who was, our hosts assured us as Jessamyn and I sat there in horror, among her many talents, an accomplished baby animal killer. Needless to say, I'm back in the market for a Kiwi grandma who I can trust around small creatures.