It especially appealed to me because Bailey, our ginger killer-cat, brought in the first mouse in ages tonight. He managed to throw off his latest collar (and bell) a few days ago so he’s now silent and deadly. He came into the house meowing out the side of his mouth because the rest of his mouth was stuffed with dead mouse. He came into the living-room and dropped it on the carpet to admire for a while.

He was most put out when I removed the mouse and dumped it in the outside bin. He sulked for a while, then stalked off outside again.

The closest we came to a blog was the CatTails wiki page that Tony started when Gizmo and Bailey were kittens. We used to keep it up to date with all the kills and crap that they brought in. Their count is way too numerous nowadays, though.

While not the most gross (though yucky and messy), the magpie to the right is the most bizarre. He wasn’t small and our kittens (at the time) were. We can only imagine that one of them (Bailey?) had managed to catch it and drag it through the cat-flap (no other way in) then been scared off by a massive flapping vicious magpie. Tony sums up the story nicely on his blog.

I love my cats.

We stayed in the Castle Ruthin (Castell Rhuthun) Hotel in Ruthin, about an hour from Snowdonia. Which was very nice. We started off in a pleasant room with a teeny four-poster bed but had to move upstairs to a grander room with no four-poster but with a large Sony LCD TV – which impressed Tony no end. Slightly bizarrely, our room doubled as the emergency exit in case of fire (through the bathroom window and out on to the roof) but, fortunately, wasn’t required to fulfill that capacity during our stay. We were, however, woken each morning by the cries of a very persistant peacock that sounded a lot like our cat Gizmo.

We counted about 3 male and 2 female (plus 3 chicks) peacocks, which live in the gardens and among the ruins of the 13th Century Ruthin Castle.

Friday, we drove down to Snowdonia with the aid of trusty ‘Jane’ (Tony’s TomTom), where we went for a ride round Lake Padern on the Llanberis Lake Railway. After lunch we visited the National Slate Museum, which is more interesting than it sounds, and included a demonstration of how they split and shape slates to make roof tiles. In the evening we drove up to Caernarfon for a wander around and dinner.

Saturday, we walked in to Ruthin town and went to the small market in the Ruthin Gaol, then went back to the castle for a leisurely sit in the sunshine in the castle gardens. Later, we visited the Valle Crucis Abbey (the ruins of a 13th Century abbey). There, we looked for some time at a series of small walls…actually there’s more left of it than that and worth seeing if you like that sort of thing.

Today, we came home. The cats have finally come in from the field. They are disdainful and Bailey has ‘lost’ his collar.