Hi all, thanks for all your kind words. It was a shock, still not sure it's sunk in properly. The little fella was Damien. Some of the longer term posters would know who I mean.
He was only 8, which is part of why it's such a shock.

No idea what caused it. Plenty of different spiders out there, but cats are usually ok with those, no tell tale signs of a snake being around. Perhaps he had some underlying issue which just took him. Very much missed by myself, and the other cats.

Thank you all again for your kind words, and sorry for dragging down the Xmas spirit, if that happened.

Hope everyone else had a great day.