Something has been eating the crocus bulbs in the bed by the ditch. When I was weeding there (mostly pulling out goose grass seedlings, which come up as thick as a box of supermarket cress at this time of the year) I found their poor stalks, severed and discarded. I presume it is mice, or voles, or some sort of wretched rodent, and feel slightly aggrieved that, given we are over-run with cats and owls, something couldn't try a bit harder to keep the rodents under control.
The cats don't do rodent control. Once it gets dark and cold and we light the stove they lie in front of that, or within a three metre radius of it, thank you very much. The only cat that patrols the garden properly is Black and White Alsatian Killer Cat. He is a short haired, short legged black and white creature that got his name because early in our acquaintance he jumped up and snapped at my forearm like a police dog. I was wearing a heavy coat at the time, and didn't pay undue attention. Then he started coming into the house, and after he had bitten both of us (he got me on the wrist and I spent a week on antibiotics and it took a couple of months to regain normal sensation in one finger) he was evicted from the house. Then we discovered he was nominally the neighbours' cat, and had his own bed and a name and everything. We explained that we had enough cats of our own already, besides which he was a biter. Nowadays we have reached an understanding. Black and White Alsatian Killer spends a lot of his time slinking around our garden and sitting in the borders. We don't try to touch him, and he doesn't try to bite us, just gives us an enigmatic but vaguely unpleasant glance as he passes. Sometimes he comes and sits and stares in through the veranda window, like the evil manservant Quint. Our neighbours don't mind not seeing so much of their pet now that they have discovered he hates both of them, and only likes their daughter-in-law.
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