Being small, Mini can find lots of interesting places to sleep. She's always liked climbing inside my bathrobe. Now she's discovered the sleeve is the snuggest place.

From the kitchen, we could see Minerva - our tiny, runt-like tabby cat - sitting up by the gate chewing on something.

"Oh, she's just biting the head off a vole," we thought, as you do. Our cats like a nice warm vole for breakfast.

I strolled outside to say hello. As I got closer, I realised it was bigger than a vole. At first, I thought she might have found and killed the mole we recently saved (at extreme peril to ourselves - see the 'Wild wildlife' at the WebVivant blog).

But there was something wrong. The thing she was chewing on was still big, but it clearly had no head.

And then I knew. Mini was snacking on the rear half of a rabbit. When complete, the creature must have been nearly the same size as the cat. An impressive kill.

I left her to it. But that wasn't good enough for her.

We had breakfast, and just as I headed off to the office I noticed something on the living room floor.

Mini had had her fill. She couldn't manage a whole rabbit and so had thoughtfully left us the hind legs, delicately crossed in a balletic pose. How thoughtful.

It was obvious something wasn't quite right.

First, I saw Mini, our nearly one year-old kitten, with her nose jammed under the sofa. A mouse, I thought. It'll keep. Or it'll be a snack.

Ten minutes later, Mini had obviously got bored and wandered off. But now it was Zola, our Breton spaniel, with his nose wedged under the furniture. He whimpered from time to time, but that's dogs for you.

We were having tea by then, so we figured we'd leave the rescue until we'd finished.

We're accustomed to having wildlife in the house. I've rescued two owls from the flue that runs from the wood-burner. We've had a flock of starlings. There's a fouine (stone marten) that lives in the attic from time to time. Grass snakes have turned up in the photolibrary and outside the bedroom window. Toads and lizards are occasional visitors. And there have been rats in the ceiling (had to get rid of those). Every year, kestrels nest in a hole in the outside wall. We can hear the chicks twittering when we have a bath.

We see mice, voles and shrews all the time - usually brought in by the cats who play with the tiny critters until they break. Sometimes the cats eat them, often they prefer a bowl of crunchies after all that exertion.

After tea, we re-arranged the furniture and pulled the sofa forward ready to pounce on the mouse or vole.

Being prepared for a tiny rodent, the sight of a young rabbit gave us quite a shock. The change of scale made us jump. Not that the bunny was exactly huge, as you can see from the picture (though Trish's gardening glove does make it look even smaller). It was not exactly a baby, but definitely very young.

How it got under the sofa is anybody's guess. None of our animals are owning up to it. Trish dropped it back into the pheasant enclosure in the neighbour's field. It's an entire wood, fenced off against the foxes and fouines and the most likely place near here to find a rabbit warren. I hope it found its way home.

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.

First, the original version...

And now, the translated version...