So we woke late last night to the sound of Madame Harriet, one of our #cat overlords here at our current #UK housesit, making kind of noise that any cat person will immediately recognise as "I am walking through the house with a present for you. Get ready for entrails. Yay entrails!"

We promptly turned on the light to see her sitting on the end of our bed with one of my socks in her mouth. She was proudly declaring she'd killed it for us.
The sock looked decidedly dead. If it could have entrails, they would have been on show. She obviously understood how to murder a sock with both skill and panache.

We thanked her for her services to the Society for Making Sure There Is Only Ever One Sock In Any Pair Left After A Week and went back to sleep.

Some time later, I woke to the feeling of something running up my leg. It was small, scratchy and definitely not my imagination.

On reflex, I whipped off the duvet and froze when I saw a very alive mouse hunched down against my knee.

Swearing, meowing, bellowing and roaring ensued but I can safely report that mouse, humans and cat are all still living, with mouse relocated to garden. No sign of entrails at all.

Meanwhile Madame Harriet kept my sock in her mouth the entire time, obviously not wanting anything to do with a ghastly mouse when she had her trophy sock to hand.

I now need a nap. A long, mouse free nap. Meanwhile Madame Harriet hasn't stopped napping all day.

The saga continues...

#cats #Caturday

@georgepenney Yikes. This is why Miss Cinnamon does not have the freedom to use the cat flap unsupervised (she is a fearsome huntress but sometimes bring live prey)
@purplepadma @georgepenney
Meggie only brings in live prey (usually bank voles or slow worms), always unhurt. We are trying to teach Laurie that we prefer them to be intact - & he occasionally remembers.
Our previous cat turned the house into a major crime scene every night. She dismembered her prey & left it spread around the house.
@SurrealSeal @georgepenney I could NOT cope with that!
@purplepadma @georgepenney
It was horrible! I could have drawn a lot of little chalk outlines over the years.
We lock up the porch every night now, so Meggie & Laurie don't get the chance. They are pretty good at coming in, although Laurie sometimes pushes the boundaries... (he's still adolescent).
@SurrealSeal @georgepenney We shut Miss Cinnamon at night, if I’m here alone she’s in from 8.30pm as I like to go to bed early. Tom is more lenient and will let her go out at 10pm, however sometimes this results in him waiting up for her until midnight. I have no sympathy, he should enforce parental boundaries 😹
@purplepadma @georgepenney
I'm with you there. Hubby thinks I shut the door too early, but he isn't the one who stays up at night until they are both in.

@purplepadma @SurrealSeal @georgepenney

I only let Auriel MurderPaws (AMP for short) out on a leash, with me, in daylight. Coyotes lurk and you simply never know when they will strike, even when you are out in the yard. Also I want to spare the birds her lethal paws.

@georgepenney as someone whose cat has tried to bring us three different mice in the last few days, I feel your pain!
@Funktious Agh, you too?! Alive or post mortem?
@georgepenney alive, unfortunately; I’d mind less if he killed them first but he always brings them alive and draws us into this horrible situation where we have to try and save the poor little thing! We have to praise him and stroke him and tell him how impressed we are until he drops it then grab him as quickly as possible so it can get away. It’s a very weird, horrific little pantomime. He’s gets shut in at night for this very reason!
@georgepenney Madame Harriet is such a great name for a cat. So regal. So cat. Very mouser sounding
@georgepenney As an owner of a sock obsessed cat, this just made me laugh a lot.
We've had to give ours her very own old sock to play with, which of course, she mostly now ignores.

@georgepenney

Madame Harriet the Sock Slayer will be a legendary hero for centuries to come

@georgepenney I'm sorry you went through such a fright but... that's just an awesome story and you told it so well. πŸ’–
@georgepenney That story was sounding very familiar until the live mouse part. Yikes! Not sure how our cats would respond to a mouse, and I hope to never find out b

@georgepenney a fantastically well told story. 😁

One of our #cat overlords, Diesel, woke us early one morning this week proclaiming his victory over a rubber band.... We made the mistake of ignoring him and so later that day we discovered a rather less active mouse at the base of the stairs.

@georgepenney

Used to live on a lake. A lake with bullfrogs. And we had a cat. The cat liked to honor me by catching and eating bullfrogs under my bed. Legs first.