We now have two new people to add to our “We Owe You An Apology/Explanation Because Of Louis Catorze” list: Basil who came to install our new front door lock (Embarrassment Rating: Level 4), and Lee the tiler who is doing our front path (Embarrassment Rating: Level 8).

Catorze started screaming from a distance the minute Basil started his work and, when it was finished and Basil was demonstrating how to use the lock, the little sod – still out of sight – ramped up the volume. Basil stopped the demonstration mid-sentence and said, “Sorry, but … what IS that?”

Me: “Oh. Erm, that’s our cat. Sorry about him. He loves visitors so he’s just excited that you’re here.”

At that point Sa Maj pitter-pattered into view, up-tailed, psycho-eyed and screaming. Basil looked at him and said, “Aw, are you excited? That’s nice but, unfortunately, I’m going to have to go soon.”

Catorze: “Owww-mwaaaahhhhhh!”

Basil: “He said “Oh, why?”! Didn’t that sound just like “Oh, why?”?”

It actually did.

Anyway, despite the drama, Sa Maj now has a new friend. And it seems that there was a reason for the screaming other than just to greet Basil: I later discovered that the little sod had brought a mouse (his second of the day) and left it in the place from where his distant screaming had originated. And that place happened to be right in the middle of Lee’s route from The Front to his tile-cutting machine at The Back, so he absolutely had to have seen it.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, after I’d picked up and bagged the mouse, I hung the bag over the outside tap at The Back, out of Catorze’s reach, with the intention of disposing of it in the park bin after Lee had gone. But then I forgot about it. And I hadn’t tied up the bag very well so, in the highly unlikely event of Lee not having noticed the mouse the first time, he certainly would have done so when he took the bag off the tap to hose down the patio.

So, at best, Lee thinks we have a mouse infestation and are too lazy to clean it up. And, at worst, he thinks we put dead mice in bags and hang them around the house for fun.

Cat Daddy: “Or both. It could be both, you know.”