I saw a mouse ... where?

Most of our six cats hunt. Mini, our six month-old kitten is a savage killer and is busily decimating the vole, shrew and mouse populations of Normandy. When we came back from a week's holiday recently, there were six corpses in the living room and kitchen. According to the friends who were looking after the place, there were none the day before.

They're not all dead, though. Often Mini brings one in as a toy and plays with it until it breaks. Then she gets another.

When we hear that pathetic, high-pitched squeaking, or the chittering of a shrew, we do our best to rescue the poor critter. I'm not sure why, but it seems the right thing to do.

And so, the other night I found myself racing around the living room trying to corner a tiny mouse in which Mini had already lost all interest (she'd gone for a snack). I finally managed to grab it - not an easy feat given that I was wearing gardening gloves and it was one of the smallest mice I'd ever seen. Nevertheless, its heart was beating hard enough for me to feel it through the thick leather.

I stepped outside into total darkness. It was around 9pm, overcast and drizzling. Normally I would have walked across the courtyard and set the poor blighter free in the shrubbery, but I couldn't see where I was stepping and, with the gloves on, couldn't pluck my LED torch from my pocket. I reached down, close to the ground, opened my hand and ... felt the tiny animal run up my arm.

I was wearing a fisherman's jumper with crew neck (that's relevant - you'll see). It was hard to track the mouse's movement through the thick, loosely-knit wool, but I knew it had reached my shoulder. I didn't want to go back into the lighted living room because that would have been to deliver the mouse to a savage fate. Instead, I opened the door a crack and called for Trish, saying "bring a torch".

She did. In the meantime, though, I hadn't felt any movement. Trish searched me and declared me mouse-free. The brave little chap must have jumped, we thought, though a nagging doubt remained.

We watched an hour's TV, with me lying on the sofa as usual. Then we retired to the office where we blogged and surfed for perhaps another hour. Then back to the living room to prepare for bed - dog out, lights off, dog in, door locked. Anything else? It was while I stood going through the nightly checklist that I became aware of a new noise, a kind of rapid, high-pitched panting, very close and just behind me. I reached back over my left shoulder and explored my jumper. Sure enough, just below the neckline was a small bump.

"Trish," I called, "I don't think that mouse has gone."

She arrived, liberated the wee timorous beastie from my jumper and finally set it free. That was one lucky mouse - for now.