and then came Owl

Well he just turned up one night did Owl. Pretty sure he turned up having discovered that our garden for some unfathomable reason is some sort of mouse hotel. How do I know this? Well two reasons, the first being that Cooper (the bandy legged cat) frequently brings me little mouse offerings, in varying degrees of life. On a good day it's still squeaking and intact so a good wail of "Drop it you little *$!*er" allows for mouse rescue. On a bad day, well, decapitated mouse with dripping entrails. I've told him now on numerous occassions that it's best to show his love in other ways, say it with flowers, say it with chocolates, hell even a dubious smelling perfume would be better. But no it's mice, oh or the occassional bird. This is the main reason that Cooper will never, ever get a cat flap. The other way I know that I appear to be running a garden retreat for middle aged mice is that they pop up regularly in the compost bin. I actually apologised to one when I dropped some potato peelings on his head one evening. Oh dear, no hope really.

Anyway as I said, I know for sure this is Mouse central and Owl knew it too, so owl (or perhaps I should call him Wol?) established base camp somewhere nearby and our garden became the Owl equivalent of McDonald's.

Initially, I was rather taken with Owl and his twit twooing. Like I said, initially, my enchantment with the whole romantic owl swooping and twitting started to fade. Why? well because in typical me style I couldn't get a normal owl could I?, oh no, my one had to have a sleep disorder. Trust me life with a sleep disordered owl is not fun. The twitting and wooing suddenly extended quite dramatically. At it's worst Owl twitted all day and all night. For a couple of day's straight, he wasn't even to be scared off by playing the Prodigy at full volume.

I didn't quite now what to do about Owl's weirdness, I mean it's not the sort of think you learn anywhere is it? I mean would his Owly clock redjust at some point? Did he have some Owly need I should be addressing? Was he just a lovestruck Owl looking for lurve? I pondered long and pondered hard. Is there an Owl equivalent of Match.com where I could find him the Owlette of his dreams? or did he need carting off to the Owl loony bin aka the RSPB just in case he'd flown into a tree or something and got brain injured. It was a tough few days.

But then, he vanished, as quick as he came, he disappered. Pretty sure the power struggles with Cooper for mice probably got too much so he flew off to some other woman's garden, a pussy free zone I'd wager.

I miss Owl and yes I did give him a name Wart - because like one, he was sort of annoying but you miss it when it's gone.