You dirty rat!

There's a corpse on the back verandah.

It's a gift of love from Mr Furpants, of course: a medium-sized rat with a brown back and a cream tummy. I'm telling myself that it's just having a little nap in the shade, so who am I to disturb its rest? So what if its feet are stuck in the air and its ropey little tail is as stiff as a chopstick? It's not chewed or otherwise mutilated - Mr F doesn't deign to eat rats. It's probaby very, very tired. It might be having a nap.

I know that sooner or later, I'm going to have to dig a hole and bury it, but I'm trying to put that off. Bloke has gone fishing with Number One Brother, so I can't make him do it, even though corpse disposal is clearly in his job description.

I might just go and check whether it's still there. It could have blown away. Just talk amongst yourself for a minute.

Back again. Oh holy God, the ants have found it. This is not good. I really am going to have to get the spade and dig it a shallow grave. The bin's only just been emptied and it's rather warm, so the old bag-and-bin trick isn't advisable. A rat in the bin is worth... well, something exceptionally pongy. And large. Dead rats really punch above their weight in the stinky stakes. The problem with burying it is that I'm bound to dig up other victims of our vicious little hunter. We always tend to bury the dead near the fences, so every time a new grave is sunk, older skeletons surface. It's quite macabre, really. I suppose it's lucky we don't live on an ancient Indian burial ground, or we'd be under siege from zombie rats and mouses.

Christ, I suppose I'd better go and do it. I bet Bloke comes home just as I'm patting down the last shovelful of earth. He'd better have caught some damned fish.