Lucy (the secret identity of the feline superhero El Gato) loves to drink from the swimming pool. It matters not that over the last week we've had swings of weather from 41 degree infernos to gusty southerly changes which dropped the temperature by 20 degrees in 90 minutes and blew about a tonne of loose organic matter into what was, until a few days ago, a crystal clear blue tinged pool but which now looks like a Louisiana swamp. She still wants to drink from it.

This is usually signalled by manic meowing followed by staring at the back door. And so it was last night.

"It's night time already. The pool needs to be re-cleaned. Why on earth do you want to go out?"
"MeeeeOOOOWWWW!!!"

I was tossing up whether it would be too late to run a load of washing and so I let her out for a bit. (After The Great Tick Fiasco of last year she is only allowed out when she can be watched to make sure that she doesn't dive into the bushes or do a tour of next door's gardens.) So I let her out and she runs to the side of the pool. Not to drink, but to stare. Then I see it; a frog had decided to hop (I have no idea where from) into the pool.

The frog wisely swims to the bottom of the pool. Eventually it resurfaces on the other side, where I am. Then it sees me, and swims back down... heading back to the cat side of the pool.

"Hey frog, I'm not going to do anything to you, but SHE will. Heading back there is not the best idea you've had."

But still, he manages to avoid being spotted by the feline predator, who still knows he's out there somewhere. After a time he manages to escape both our sights, so puss just lies down scanning the pool

But froggy can't hold his breath forever and eventually comes back to the surface. This resulted in the Mexican stand-off that we see here. At that point I decided to dash in to grab the Olympus to capture it.

The stupid part was somewhat captured in the subsequent frames, which contained more action but less detail than this one. Frame 9765 - froggy swims to the poolside right in front of the cat, resulting in a paw being swiped at a rapidly escaping frog.

Frame 9774 - The idiot frog has returned to the corner of the pool. The cat is reaching in to give it the kiss of death. I might have used that one but there wasn't much of the frog visible. Froggy just manages to slip from puss' grasp and dives.

Frame 9783 - Idiot frog has returned and this time puss is using her paw. Somehow frog manages to launch itself off the paw and onto the pebblecrete.

Frame 9784 - Blurred as the photographer says "Oh s**t!" and dashes across to the other side of the pool to try to prevent puss from getting herself a new chew toy, since she doesn't like to so much eat her prey as... play with it. Having freed idiot frog from a certain and lingering death, the final shots of the evening show froggy having returned to the pool and being carefully watched by cat, who is doubtless thinking "I got you once..." (But she didn't. Cat was removed, frog fished out and dumped into the undergrowth of the garden.)