Mikes weather bits & Photo Blog: Eeeeeeek! its a mouse

One of the joys of owning cats is their unerring generosity, one of ours "sainsbury" will spend a long time sat on our old neighbours (Sharons) wall staring down into the long grass that passes for a garden.
He will then without fail dive into the grass and bring home a rodent. Could be a shrew could be a vole normally a mouse. The generosity bit is that he will always bring it into the house to play with it, if i'm in it invariably ends up being rescued and put back into the garden for some more sport later.
Now and again he will bring one in when we are away lose interest with it or it will escape to hide in the house, deep joy.
It was obvious that something was under the kitchen units the other day as Sainsbury sat for ages staring at or underneath the edge of the washing machine. He has no love for this appliance since his "Wash & rinse" episode. (see blog 08/12/2011) so i concluded a rodent was in residence.
I removed the plinth edge on the bottom of the kitchen units wherupon Sainsbury crawled around underneath scratching a particular part of the false wall. - - - - I had a "cunning plan" and laid a trap, one of the humane kinds that catches rather than kills the beast, bating it with a choice piece of irish blue cheese. I then replaced the plinth edge to keep out Sainsbury
Sure enough this morning the trap had closed and the pesky rodent was trapped, i released it into the top of the garden warning it that the Irish blue cheese was all but consumed so, "Dont come back for more". I did think of marking it to see if it was caught later but determined it was a pointless excercise as following my shout it turned and had an "I'll be back look" in its eyes. - - - Freaky!

I was (falsely i might add) accused of passing wind the other night while watching telly, this is normally not beyond the bounds of possibility but in this instance i protesteth like a guilty man! On investigation later it transpired the smell was coming from either behind the book case or from underneath the floor.
Yesterday then i emptied one bookshelf unscrewed it from the wall and the other book shelf and investigated, all the time being observed by Sainsbury. Sure enough there was a second pesky rodent curled up in the wall cavity looking like it was asleep but smelling like it had expired some days before. I had removed the skirting board to allow the bookcases to fit flush with the wall and this is where it had escaped to. I removed the corpse and disposed of it and sealed the gap before replacing said bookshelf and books.

Ah the joy of owning a cat!