Dead Mouse

Yes, today's great excitement (?) was the discovery of a large and extremely dead mouse under Richard's desk in our dining room.

When I got up this morning, I thought there was a bit of an odd smell. I put it down to making chicken stock last night, and opened several windows. The smell seemed to dissipate, at least in the kitchen.

Then Tim told me he needed to take a couple of tests for his home education coursework. He does these sitting at our dining room table. The smell was really bad in there, and opening windows did not help. It was only then that we thought to check Sophia's usual spot for 'burying' her kill. Usually she eats birds, mice, lizards and so on. She catches them outside, but brings them into the room where we eat, and has a little snack while we're having our meal. Not every day, but often enough during the spring and summer that we've become accustomed to it. Mostly it's lizards, thankfully, and she eats them in their entirety. Generally she manages to eat most of a mouse too, but this time there was what looked like a complete body. Ugh.

Tim and I don't do mouse-moving. Opening windows did not help with the smell.

So we moved through to the kitchen table, closed all the doors, and left all the windows open. Richard wasn't home for lunch today, but got home at 5.30 this afternoon and quickly disposed of it. He said the mouse was so huge it might have been a rat! Shudder. Tim and I didn't get close enough to look, and I'm not sure I'd know the difference anyway. But if it was a rat, perhaps that's why Sophia didn't eat it.

Incidentally, noting a couple of the comments on this post, I should add that the rat wouldn't have been in the house to start with. There are mice in some houses here, but they're intelligent enough to keep out of houses where four cats are living. I haven't heard of rats living in homes at all, although there are some wild outdoors. Not that I've ever seen a live one. However although our other cats eat any 'snacks' they catch outside, Sophia brings hers inside. Either she didn't eat this one because rats are just too disgusting, or it was intended as a present for Richard...

Living in Cyprus is great, but it's not all bougainvillea and beaches...