Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - cats

Victory for the ape decendents

2011-03-28T09:49:00+01:00

A number of weeks ago our feline owner bought a live rodent into the house. As we attempted to stop the cat playing with it's food it managed to make it's escape into the bowels of our kitchen seemingly disappearing into the skirting behind our sink. After a fruitless hour of poking with sticks while wearing a head torch we gave up assuming the cat would finish the job next time it ventured out. Unfortunately the rodent proved to be smarter than the average pussy cat and made a life for itself pinching fruit and other scraps it was able to find at night. The carefully baited mouse trap also failed to attract it's attention. In the end we resorted chemical warfare and went for the utilitarian "Rat Kill Station" which presents a one stop bait and poison delivery mechanism in a handy enclosed plastic box. Visions of the rat retiring after a large hearty meal never to wake again were shattered on Sunday afternoon when the noise of it's death throes in the base of our oven summoned our attentions. The thing had grown significantly and we were left with the dilemma of leaving it to finish it's death or handling a rather pissed off but terminal rat out of the house. Next time I think I'll just leave the cat to finish the job and appreciate the relative cleanliness of the circle of life.

Back with a bump

2010-11-16T10:34:00+00:00

We went up to Manchester last weekend to complete Fliss' much delayed hen night. The ladies reported having much fun partaking in a combination of tea and gambling.

I took the opportunity to go on a short tour of some of Manchester's many fine ale houses. It was nice to catch up with some of the old Transitive crew as well as the regular beer drinking buddies. Somehow we managed to end up exploring some interesting cocktail bars in dark recesses of Salford. We also forgot to eat dinner which might have accounted for the slightly wobbly state which we returned to Aidan and Gillian's in.

Our post weekend high was brought to a rather abrupt halt last night when a neighbour brought Andy, one of our cats, who had been hit and killed on the main road. We are understandably quite shocked, least of all because we thought with all the space behind us the cats wouldn't be tempted to go near the road. However being free roaming felines as they are it's hard to think what else we could have done to dissuade venturing to the front of the house.

Another day, another eviscerated corpse

2010-10-06T09:34:00+01:00

The cats have been on quite a murderous campaign of rodent eradication since we returned from our honeymoon. One particularly memorable night found me unable to sleep as Andy was making an interesting set of crunching and slurping noises at the foot of the bed. When I turned the light on it was as I had imagined the noises a cat makes when eating a rodent, bones and all.

Fliss reckons this is down to the cats insecurity after our prolonged absence possibly due to lack of food. By leaving the half eaten corpses they are ensuring we are well supplied. I'm not so sure this thesis holds up given the cats seems to enjoy a healthy portion of the aforementioned rodents themselves, despite being well fed from the bowl. I'm sticking with the theory that they are natural born rodent killers and they just like showing off....

Managing Mammals

2010-07-12T15:22:00+01:00

I'm writing this post the Sunday house break-in attempt. However much as I'd like to vent and praise I thought I'd stick with some positive commentary on the weekend and save the rest for another post.

This weekend has involved a variety of mammals and their interactions with their human masters/slaves/overlords*. We started on Friday when an old friend of Fliss' came over to stay with his lovely half-whippet dog Mina. Mina is very friendly and approachable but also fairly excitable which explains why our two cats didn't really hang around for too long to get to know her. They quickly came to the decision that the wilds at the back of the house were more preferable than sharing with an unknown dog. We did shut the door between kitchen and living room to create a dog-free refuge for the cats but they seemed reluctant to trust in our security arrangements, even scarpering at high speed when I came into the kitchen to do some washing up.

I found another mammal in our garden during the evening. A hedgehog came wandering across my path before rushing into the perceived shelter of the garage. Rather than rush it out we decided to leave the garage open as late as possible. However the hedgehog persisted in hiding itself away until I eventually gave up and locked it in for the night.

Once Mina left with Thom late on Saturday it took a degree of coaxing to convince the cats that it was safe to approach the house again. I ended up taking a food bowl outside and progressively moving it closer to the house. I'm happy to report the cats are now back to fully the facilities offered by our humble abode.

That left us on Sunday evening with our hedgehog visitor having endured two overnight stays in the garage and showing no sign of leaving via the open doors during the day/evening. I ended up picking it up with some suitable gardening gloves, watching it cutely go into defencive ball position before laying down on the garden border and watching it waddle into the bushes, hopefully hungry to tackle the slugs in the garden.

* delete as appropriate