Week 306: Murder cat

July 14, 2024

As I was eating my fruit and fibre I noted two green woodpeckers pecking at the lawn. I love seeing these infrequent visitors to the garden. They only eat from the lawn, never the bird feeder, unlike their spotted friends.
As I was watching, my favourite neighbourhood cat, a slender chap named Olaf leapt out from the bushes and pounced, catching one of the woodpeckers in his murderous claws. I leapt up from my cereal and dashed outside yelling “OIIIIIIIIII HEY! STOP!!”. Olaf ran into the bushes but the woodpecker was injured, his wing at a jaunty angle, he sat there pathetically.
I stood helplessly in my striped pyjamas looking at the bird. I went in to get my phone but as I left Olaf came back from the bushes and I had to chase him off again. I texted my neighbourhood whatsapp.
In the end I decided, yeah, let’s ruin my day by adding “care of an injured woodpecker” to the list. Olaf seemed to have gone, and the bird had shuffled into a flowerbed, less exposed than he was on the lawn.
I went in to get a box, but when I returned the bird was nowhere. The woodpecker’s mate was in the tree above me, making woodpecker noises into the void. I went back into the house and we were late for school.
ACAB (All cats are bastards)
Managed to convince E to do her swimming lesson after 2 humiliating weeks of her being fully on strike by letting her put a wet handprint on my trousers ever time she swum out and back. Humbled once again.