Last night Alison found the first frog of the year in our driveway. The snow that has been around for a couple of weeks now had vanished as the temperature raised itself to a heady 6 degrees C and out she came, (the frog, not Alison!) heading for the big pond.

Last year, on March the 9th (Alison’s birthday), I counted over one hundred froggy heads in our pond by the front door. It was very pleasant sitting in our lounge listening to them sing the evening away. About a week or so later, they were gone but  their spawn filled the pond. When it had all hatched, the water was black with tadpoles. Nice!

Unfortunately, when we bought the house, the pond we inherited was full of fish too. Some Koi Carp and some yellow things and a couple of black versions of the yellow ones - can you tell I know what I’m talking about - and I’m sad to say that they completely ‘dysoned’ the tadpoles up leaving nothing at all. I never saw a single young frog from the big pond last year. :-(

We did get a few froglets from the smaller ponds round the back of the house  as there are no fish there. Unfortunately, all the neighbourhood cats used to play around there and hunt the frogs, squirrels and birds. Murdering bastards!

“They are only doing what comes naturally” cat owners are fond of saying and this is true, but if I had a python and it did what they do naturally, to their cats, I’m sure they would change their tune! Keep your effing cats out of my garden! I’m pretty sure that if I took all the cat shit back to the owners they wouldn’t be too enamoured either - so why do I have to put up with it?

I hate cats by the way, can you tell?

I’m happy for you to own a cat but keep the effing things inside where they can do no harm otherwise, don’t be surprised if they don’t come home one night - if only I could set up a cat killing laser defence system around my garden life would be grand! For the moment, I have to be satisfied with the RSPB approved cat deterrent device which emits ultrasonic sound that cats, dogs and foxes find uncomfortable. It seems to work!

I’m also not all that fond of the fish either, but I do like frogs. Unfortunately, Alison likes the fish and indeed, the cats, so a mass slaughter of these killer alien creatures is somewhat forbidden at the moment I’m afraid to say. She won’t let me buy a crossbow from Amazon either. Is there no justice in the world?

With a bit of luck, I’m hoping to help boost the frog population this year by grabbing a load of spawn from the big pond and using it to fill the smaller ponds at the back of the house. They should be safer there this year as the cats now populate the front garden instead.

I’d much rather I just slaughter the fish (foul creatures that they are) and the cats too. Still, there’s time!

Cheers.