Under the bush...

The latest discoveries under Maddie's bush this morning - an empty cat food tin and a (full) bottle of sun-tan lotion. ???!!!

A walk and a half

As anyone who happened to catch my FB status update will know, we had an interesting walk yesterday. Took the hounds up to a nearby wood and all went well to begin with - although the dogs were confused as we set off away from the usual carpark owing to road closures.

Thereafter things went a little downhill - Murphy, who a couple of weeks ago disappeared off on two separate occasions and arrived back with a deer-leg clutched proudly in his mouth, decided to check out the leg possibilities this time too. Off he went, over a wall and under some barbed wire into a neighbouring meadow and disappeared from view. We carried on round on the path with Maddie (who at least hasn't got the nerve to go that far away from us no matter what the leader of the pack is doing). We sat and waited once we got to the end of that path and after 15 minutes decided to retrace our steps in case Mr Murphy had forgotten what direction we were going in, in all the excitement.

Sure enough, having heard a suspiciously-familiar bark(ish) and headed over wall and barbed wire, round trees and through thigh-length grass we finally reached the other wall where we reckoned he'd been. I found the remains of more deer-parts (not many, I have to say, and all not worth the attention) but no Murphy. Calling again, he eventually turned up from the direction of the path, just delighted to see us!

As we turned, having greeted and scolded him, and headed back towards the path, he retrieved (from God knows where) ...-  you got it - another deer leg! Complete with skin and hoof. Sigh. As usual he was immensely proud of his souvenir and wouldn't give it up for anything. So back to the carpark, where Richard managed to get it away from him with some muscle power, a poo-bag and a treat, and deposited it in the poo-bin.

Meanwhile I had ripped my trousers (luckily not my leg) on the aforementioned barbed wire and, in a moment of inattention by me (I was off taking things to the poo-bin) Richard offered Maddie a treat (as she'd been good compared to some people!) and she mistook his finger for a gravy-bone. Result? A bleeding finger and a VERY grumpy husband. Though how it was my fault I fail to understand.

We finally all got home in (almost) one piece and without any additional limbs. No mean feat!

(P.S. I should say at this point that Murphy, despite what the other walkers we encountered on the way as he carried his treasure high clearly thought, was not involved in whatever took the deer down. We think it was probably poachers but who knows.)

Who's feeding Gizzy?

I'm convinced someone is feeding Gizzy - she's always so picky about her food. Normally she gets one pouch morning and night, with dry food left out for her to munch on if she's hungry.

The last couple of weeks she's been eating us out of house and home, and completely unpicky! One evening she polished off THREE pouches of food!! And she's not a big cat, in size or weight, if anything she's on the thinner side.

As of yesterday, however, she's gone back to turning her nose up at our offerings and not climbing all over us to demand food at every opportunity. So whoever it is that must also feed her is clearly back from on holiday.

I wish people wouldn't do that. She's got a collar and tag on, why would you feed a cat that CLEARLY belongs to someone else?