The cat and the rat – not for the squeamish

Yesterday, I wrote about Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, and specifically the monuments in the main cathedral. I cannot write about the dead at Christ Church without writing about perhaps the most famous entombment at all – the cat and the rat. The crypt displays the mummified remains of a cat and rat.   Please do not click below if you think you will find photos of such disturbing.

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Destruction was not in my plans…

So recently, I visited a cemetery and something rather bizarre happened.  I pulled into the cemetery, and a caretaker was using a weedwhacker to trim the grass around some of the headstones.  Although I was there during the posted gate hours, the caretaker must not be used to seeing people come in so early, because he actually stopped the weedwhacker to look at me.  I waved at him, and he weakly waved back.  He seemed even more taken aback when I drove to one of the older sections of the cemetery and stepped out of the car with my camera.  I looked over my shoulder in between photographing monuments and noticed that he was paying attention to what I was doing – not in an unfriendly way, more like someone who is seeing something unexpected and isn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Well, sadly, it appears I distracted this caretaker too much, because after a few moments, I turned around because I heard his truck back up on the grass.  Where his truck had been, there was a white, government-issue military headstone lying flat, which I was fairly certain had not been there when I drove by.

It was my turn to watch, as he attempted to right the tombstone he had just backed over.  He seemed to have it reset by the time I left.

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