Yesterday morning DH was in bed after a nightshift and I was downstairs watching TV and eating lunch. The bathroom window was open and all three of the cats were in and out as normal on a nice day. I went into the kitchen to get a drink and spotted Mackerel out of the window. Now you may recall I have mentioned before that my back garden is a little neglected. The grass is about 6 inches long at the moment. Mackerel was stood on the path batting at something with his paw. I stopped to look and as I watched something whitish flipped out of the grass and back down. My immediate thought was "What the **** has he got there so I opened the back door and went out to him. He warily watched me approach until I got close enough to see it was a koi carp about 4-5 inches long and very much alive, flopping around in the grass. Then I made the classic mistake. "Bad cat what have you done" Mackerel grabs his fish and legs it through the hedge into next door.

Ok time for plan B. I went into the house and got a first aid glove, like doctors wear, and went and knocked on next door. Luckily enough Sam and Graham are quite friendly and Graham was more than happy to allow me access into their garden. I played crafty this time. Mackerel was in the middle of their lawn watching me carefully so I approached slowly. "What have you got there, Oh what a lovely fish. Let mummy see. What a clever boy you are" Mackerel allows me to get close enough to grab him and lift him away from the fish. I put the glove on (I wasn't touching it with bare hands) and went to pick up the now dead fish. The dead fish waits until its been lifted to waist high then starts flipping in my hand. Now I'm not a coward. Dead fish, mice, birds, even cats that have gone to Rainbow Bridge, not a problem. But live things no way. So I screamed and threw the fish across the garden. Graham, watching from the safety of his back door, is almost crying with laughter by now. He offers me a plastic bag so I put the fish in that and went home to get DH out of bed to identify fish, which turns out to be a koi carp, worth about £30 here.

Ten minutes later DH is the shower and I'm tidying up in the spare bedroom, and what do I see out of the window. Mackerel is sat on the edge of next doors pond with a determined look on his face. I screamed at him so loudly that all of the street must have heard and frightened him so badly he almost fell into the pond before running off and hiding.

But as a footnote Mackerel came in about an hour or so ago and one front paw was soaking wet up to the knee!

Copyright © Kim Cole
April 2, 2000