We moved here 20 years ago with our 5 cats. The word got around. A few weeks after we arrived there was a knock on the door, a cat had just been hit by a car, was it one of ours? It wasn't. I got to him in time to stroke his head as he died. The driver had been going far over the speed limit and the cat had been hurled far into the air. Driver never stopped, natch. Never identified.

About ten years later we had a little kitten, born in our house, who we'd had to get fixed up after she broke her hip (not cheap). Found her dead outside our house with her head crushed and her eyeballs hanging out. I think this was because she was sitting underneath a neighbour's car wheel and he started off too fast for her to move, but I never found out. Nobody admitted to it.

Shortly after that we came home from holiday to find that our little Persian cat Splodge had been picked up by the council's refuse collectors after a neighbour reported him lying dead in the gutter a block away. Never found who did that either.

The part of the village we're in is a big cul de sac. You can't be on your way to anywhere in a hurry if you're driving near us. Doesn't stop the macho shits from gunning their engines and treating the place like a race track. The one thing that slows them down is potholes. I fuckin love potholes. Hopefully I'll get to laugh and somebody with a smashed axle someday.