I woke up this morning, went downstairs, pottered about the living room and then saw something that made me leap backwards.
There is a dead mouse in our living room.
After we moved here eight months ago, the cat initially refused to go outside. Then she started hanging around the door, watching us sitting in the garden.
I tried to pick her up a couple of times and put her outside, but she ran straight back in.
Then she started tentatively going outside herself, then I looked up from the kitchen window one day and realised she was boldly strolling around the garden.
Now she gets annoyed if she can't go out.
We had thought that she was going to be - if we're completely honest - a bit too crap to hunt. After all, she was eight years old by the time she got access to the outside world. She never shows any inclination to do anything other than sit on my husband's knee.As far as we knew, her hunting instinct had been replaced by her routine of sleeping in our bed, eating nice cat food and watching telly.
But now, not only has she managed to sneak outside when we thought she was inside, she's made her first kill.
Anyway, I am hiding upstairs from the dead mouse, rather pathetically. The cat is sitting on the chair next to me, looking nonchalant. Perhaps she expects my husband will eat the mouse for breakfast.