Lawn games

Last week at my brother's house in Canada, as I was stacking chicken skewers for our afternoon lunch in the sunshine, I let my mind wander to thinking about the bucolic bliss of living in the country and how I could just see myself making my own jam and maybe having a Lab or two who would fetch tennis balls from the end of the garden.

Daydreaming of gardens 

Thanks Pinterest Paola Gembetti

In the middle of this daydream of nature's bounty and the serenity of lawns, I looked up to find myself staring at the neighbour's fat black cat triumphantly standing in the garden with a large fluffy tail protruding from his jaws.

The tail was enormous, and the cat was looking understandably chuffed about his acquisition.  I watched, waiting to see if he would swallow the rest of the squirrel and spit out the tail.   He didn't.  Instead, he dropped the shivering wreck of a squirrel onto the lawn and proceeded to bat it around from side to side.  He then picked it up and flung it into the air, the squirrel's eyes out on stalks as it came down with a thud back onto the grass, where it lay winded on its back trying to catch its breath.  The cat, now preempting the end of the party, decides to give it one last chance and goes back to flicking the poor little thing from side to side.  

Finally, the squirrel having decided that he'd humoured the cat for long enough, rolls over limply, after which the cat puts him into this mouth and dives into the bushes and wasn't seen again for the rest of the afternoon.

Tea, anyone?