That blasted cat! (or Flo excels herself)

It's winter in the UK and a cold one at that. Due to a grant, I have
been able to have my windows and doors draught proofed. As my house is
of brick cavity wall construction (an outer and inner  brick wall with a
void in between), they have also installed cavity wall insulation. Never
having had this done before, I wasn't sure what to expect, so I couldn't
prepare the cats or myself for whatever was to occur. The appointed day
arrives, as do the workmen at 12:30 or so as expected. Almost
immediately, we hit the first snag. No one warned them about my attached
garage, so they don't have a roof ladder with them. After much
discussion and a cup of tea, they worked out how to deal with that and
then set up all their equipment. I retreated back into the comparatively
warm house and started working through the reams of e-mail and
newsgroups that I am behind on.

Suddenly, this incredibly load noise starts up and strange vibrations
occur. It turns out that they have to drill large holes about the size
of my thumb through the exterior brickwork with hammer drills. There are
not words to describe how this sounds. Poppy wakes up and glares at me.
After a few minutes, she decides that the noise is not a threat and goes
back to sleep, despite the racket. Grace and Fliss take shelter under my
bed and Flo vanishes, although I don't realise the latter until after
the work is complete and the men have left. The racket continues on and
off for several hours, leaving me with an impressive headache. Due to
the lack of the right ladders, the last bit of cavity wall insulation
has to be done from inside my loft, which included running the pipe for
the cavity wall insulation through an upstairs window and up into the
loft. There were also extension leads for the power tools, as hammer
drills have to run off the mains. The drilling sounded even louder from
the loft than it had from outside and my tinnitus is the worst it has
ever been. Anyway the guys finally finish and pack up at about 16:45 or
so and I go upstairs to calm Grace, Fliss and Flo. Incredibly, Poppy was
still asleep. Fliss listens to me and soon decides the coast is clear
and quickly jumps up onto my bed. Grace takes much more coaxing, but
eventually allows me to stroke her and calm her down. I then go into the
office (aka Flo's room) to calm Flo. No Flo in her bed, no Flo on the
window sill, no Flo under the desk, no Flo on the chair, no Flo on any
of the shelves, no Flo in the corner. Where the heck is she?! I
thoroughly search the spare bedroom, my bedroom and the loo calling her
the whole time. No Flo. Now I'm getting worried. I was very careful, but
she may have slipped out of the house, so I go downstairs and continue
looking for her and calling her. She isn't visible, so I check the usual
places: behind the settee, under the table, behind the washing machine,
behind my chair, under my wheelchair, etc. Poppy glares at me as I have
woken her up and she is not pleased. By now, I am convinced that Flo has
left the house, so I go to the French doors into the garden to see if I
can see her, as it is now dark. No sign of her, but I turn around to get
the keys for the doors so I can double check and sat immediately behind
me is a very smug cat looking very pleased with herself. Flo, who I have
been searching high and low for. That blasted cat!

My headache finally disappeared two days later. Flo is still refusing to
tell me where she was hiding.