He who would cross the Bridge of Death...

We have a field at the back of our house, separated from our garden by a stream. The field seems to be the stamping ground for every neighbourhood cat. Almost every house along our row has a plank going from their garden to the field but, typically, the right cats never use the right bridges. There was obviously some cat function going on this morning. From my kitchen window, I could see five of them, secretly watching each other, then doing that slow walk which they think makes them invisible to other cats. Then one cat sat on the end of our bridge. Panic and confusion all round, as they all suddenly wanted to cross the bridge, but without getting beaten-up. I imagined a kind of cat Holy Grail situation: 'Tell me, young Scroggins, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?' 

Our biggest cat, Merlin, has recently started bringing home young rabbits from the field. The first one was alive; he was carrying it like a kitten and it hung from his jaws without protest until we persuaded Merlin to let it go. But the next two didn't fare so well. He brought them both home and dumped them by the back door. There's nothing that puts you off your breakfast as much as a cat ripping the innards out of a rabbit, I can tell you. 

A cat we had a few years ago used to be an expert rat-catcher. When my daughter was ill and drowsing on our sofa-bad, the cat came in and gently laid a dead rat next to her pillow. He really didn't understand the commotion it caused. Such a generous act, so cruelly scorned....

Looking for a picture for this post, I found the one above, which reminded me of when we moved a cupboard from our kitchen (someone had given us a big bookshelf, and no-one argues with me over bookshelves...). We recovered numerous biros, bits of screwed-up foil, pilfered Halloween sweets, a highlighter we'd been looking for for ages, a felt mouse and a pad of post-its. One Christmas, I'd been given some bits and pieces by the school-children, and I decided to save a Lindt chocolate teddy for the next day. When I came downstairs in the morning, it was lying on the floor with cat teeth-marks in it. Merlin didn't like chocolate, it was just sitting there and had to be destroyed. My fault for leaving it in the open, I know, but... grrrrrrr!

(This post was meant to be about honesty, but that'll have to wait for another day. Yet again, the cats have taken over something that was not meant to be theirs.)