The cat that keeps on giving

Me?  But I'm so cute.

Butter would not melt in the mouth of our relaxed little cat, Thistle.  But she does like to catch, kill and sometimes eat rodents, lizards and small birds.  Large birds she leaves to their own devices.  Thistle is, when all's said and done, a small cat.

The cat often brings her prey to show us with what I cannot help but think is pride.  The parade of the captive animal often occurs at night, maybe three a.m. when we are asleep.  Spike has to rise from bed, chase the cat around the room or house, liberate the shocked, dead or dying small beast from the jaws of its captor then make the sometimes hard, sometimes easy decision.  Dead prey is easy.  In the bin.  Similarly easy are the decisions about traumatised but uninjured little creatures - released back into the wild that is our back garden.  More difficult is the decision about seriously injured, possibly fatally wounded creatures.  On at least one occasion the coup de gace was delivered with a spade.

Tell that to the rat.

Today's assuredly dead rodent - stiffer than a good gin - was not delivered to us.  Now and then Thistle the cat deposits and / or hides her prey around the house.  Does she store them for later or simply forget?  We'll never know.  Spike stumbled across this decent sized dead rat in our spare bedroom.  It was removed but there has been no indication the killer cat remembers it enough to be aggrieved that it's gone missing.

Who would have thought our cute little fur ball could be such a dedicated predator?  But now I think on that question the answer is obvious.  

Anyone Douglas.  

Our cute little cat's a predator.  They kill.

That's a lot of melon for two people

Cat with melon - getting to know one another

That, I thought, when I saw Spike approach our car parked outside the supermarket, is a big melon.  It seemed to weigh her down, as an obdurate child who did not want to leave the chocolate aisle might weigh down a mother forced to carry her reluctant four year old off the premises.

Since I first set eyes on the monster melon, however, I have been contemplating the many and varied ways it will be incorporated into our diet over the next few months ... melon juice (obviously), fruit salad with extra melon, melon on toast, deep fried melon (in honour of my Scottish culinary roots ... but even that may be a deep frier too far), melon au gratin ...

No, I don't think so either.

As for Thistle - well, she's in charge of everything so the melon (having been scrutinised carefully) was deemed to be a) not an immediate threat, b) not edible (if you're a cat with a discerning palate) and c) not really that interesting, not even as a plaything.

We live in a large country

The other day - it may have been yesterday (one forgets so easily at my age) - a tweet from @amazinmaps caught my attention.  I retweeted it to my modest little band of followers (currently 125 rather disparate souls).  It was the map of Australia below, which I think gives you a clear picture of how very big this island continent I now call home truly is.  
 

My mind has played tricks on me in the past when I've looked at maps of Australia - maybe before setting off on a long drive.  On a page the maps look the same as maps I used when I lived in Scotland.  In books of maps the territory you want to cross may fit on a page or across several pages if it's a route map from A to B via C, D or E.  But when I look at maps of Australia or parts of it I often forget scale when I'm trying to process how far a drive or flight might be.  One inch on a map of Scotland may be the same as one inch on a map of Australia or NSW but if you forget that wee word scale you run the risk of making a big mistake.  So when I saw this collage of other countries with NSW and southern Queensland about the same size as all of South Africa; all of Italy barely a fraction of West Australia the map caught my fancy.

Kersbrook, Adelaide Hills.  Pic: David Mariuz/EPA

This too makes think about the size of Australia and the contrasting forces that play upon the land and its people.  Down in South Australia thousands of folk are watching and / or fighting fires that have spread across the bone dry land to the north of Adelaide.  Homes have been consumed by unstoppable flames, vast tracts of bushland burnt to ash, dog and cat kennels razed to the ground and thousands, probably tens of thousands of domesticated, farmed and wild animals killed.  Fortunately there's been no loss of human life.  At the same time, up here in Canberra, we've been sheltering from the torrential rain of another massive summer thunderstorm.  It was not easy to hear what we were saying to one another because of ferocious rain drops pelting the roof of the pergola, the crack of lightning and roar of thunder near and far made me jump at times and our poor wee cat has been hiding under the bed.  Even I have been a source of comfort and reassurance for Thistle the cat this afternoon.

The storm is now subsiding, the rain abating.  Soon ten squillion snails and slugs will emerge from their hiding holes undergroud to assault the seedlings - sweet pea, sunflowers, peas and beans and other veg - planted not so very long ago.  Then we'll witness terror as the avenging arm of Spike the snail hunter casts out the little devils.  There will be carnage.  It will not be pretty.