Moose loose aboot this hoose!

I got in late last night after doing Radio 5 live Friday 'Up All Night' to find a large brown mouse sitting outside the front door. I waved my foot at him, to shoo him away and he casually walked about a yard away and then hid behind a recycling box. Not very effectively, I could still see him peeping at me and twitching his whiskers. J opened the front door and we hugged, and I came in and we shut the door behind us. And the mouse ran in too, but we didn't see him.

Later on we were sitting on the sofa watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and we suddenly saw a slim tail, waving, on the bookshelf, then disappearing behind the sofa. We jumped up and pulled the sofa to one side. No mouse.

'Get Miff!' I shouted. 'It's her moment! Come on fatso! Mouse time!'

Miff is on yet another diet. She doesn't like being on a diet, and is constantly whinging and collapsing on the floor pathetically, and so we assumed she would be thrilled to get her claws on some protein.

Miff was discovered on the bed, paws crossed, eyes closed, like a fat puddle of tabby fur. She did not seem very pleased to be removed and plonked in the sitting room (where the mouse had been spotted) with instructions to get on the case.

She sniffed about and then started to lash her tail excitedly. J and I waited for her to spring into action, eyes darkening, tail rigid, transformed from placid moggy into killing machine. But after a few minutes she gave up and sauntered over to her bowl to look for food. There was no food, so she threw herself on the floor dramatically and let out a long sigh.

We ignored her theatrics, as the vet had told us to do, and carried on watching TV.

A few moments later, there was a commotion behind the sofa. Claws skittering, and a hissing noise. Then thundering feet sprinting down the hall. We leapt up again.

'Go, Miffler!' I shouted excitedly. ' Well done! Get that mouse!'

'Oh, for God's sake', said J, watching the scene in the hall.

'What?' I asked.

The cat was running flat out, ears back, down the hall . The mouse was streaking down the hall too, heading for the bedroom, and freedom, through the open French windows into the yard.

But the laws of nature had been shamefully inverted. The cat was running in front of the mouse. Miff was running away as the mouse chased after her. They both disappeared into the garden. The mouse went left, under the garden gate and into the street, and the cat ran under the garden table, where she sat down heavily, and began licking her paws.

'Your cat is rubbish', J told me, as he headed back inside in disgust.

'She caught a mouse before', I said, defending Miff.

'No, Rachel, she found a half dead baby mouse and sat on it and hummed at it for three hours. You had to finish it off' said J.

'Well, she's ill. She has a temperature, remember,' I pointed out.' I've just had to lash out £100 at the vet to get her tablets'.

'She's crap', said J.' She's an embarassment. She saw a mouse and she ran away and hid'

Later on, Miff put on a great performance of sniffing about behind the sofa again, looking extra-diligent and alert.

J openly mocked her.

I fear he was right to do so.

As I type this, I think I can hear the skittering again of tiny paws.

UPDATE: More mouse drama: Miff's shame continues