Live and Let Live

I was awoken by a stirring under the duvet. At first I thought it was Anna, my wife, getting fresh. I then remembered she had shipped out to the spare room earlier that night. There it was again...pulling the cover back I saw a mouse running hither and thither across the bed. Eek! 

As I readied myself for work: sandwich in bag, jacket on, car keys, phone, wallet ...I sat down to put my boots on...foot in...hang on? ...felt like there was something stuck in my boot...shake, shake...you guessed it, out plops a sizeable rodent. Eek eek! This has got to stop! 

Our first ferrel cat would bring woodland creatures into the house, 'play' with them, then eat them (apart from voles). We thought our second ferrel cat was not into this hunter/gatherer behaviour. How wrong we were. She must have come of age as now brings in two or three mice daily, plays with them, then naffs off for a snooze. Leaving the mouse to scuttle off to some corner of the house. As I shuffle to the bathroom in the middle of the night, a mouse will scurry passed. When watching 'Help! We bought a Village' from the corner of my eye I will spy something scuttling along the skirting board. 

I'm not good at picking vermin up. If I have to, I will don the padded fire mitt (renamed mouse mitt) and working in conjunction with the cat, corner the intruder, slamming the mitt down on top of the little fella and launching it out of the window. 

Anna has become the chief wildlife remover in our house (her other titles include IT Specialist, Banking Specialist and Booking Contrôle Technique Specialist. I'm Head Gardener and Washer-upper). She has no qualms about extracting vermin with bare hands, she's Scottish and has an affinity with the ferrel.

Call me old fashioned but I don't like sharing my house/bed with br'er mouse and have tried various things to rectify this. We put a bell round the cats neck (didn't work), locked the cat flap (cat concussed itself), I have even left bits of plumbing pipe around the house as safe zones for a fleeing mouse (didn't work). 

People say cats are bringing you a present. I'm not of that line of thinking. Cats are the most selfish creatures, thinking of no one but themselves. A big cat will take a freshly killed gazelle back to its lair, our house has become the lair...only problem being they cohabit with us. Basic rules of multi occupancy living: don't steal someone else's margarine, empty the bins, don't hog the bathroom, don't keep dead or nearly dead animals in your bedroom. 

Anna says I'm getting things out of proportion. Live and let live she says, which is a bit rich coming from the person who goes berserk every time a molehill appears. She's tried shoving garlic down their holes, fire lighters, essence of eucalyptus...nothing seemed to have any effect. Then she discovered mole bombs which worked until one exploded in her face when being primed, and she nearly lost an eye. 

“What does a few molehills matter?” I said. “It's not as though our lawn is of crown green bowling quality. Moles are the most amazing little creatures...we must embrace them.” Unconvinced, but not wanting another incendiary incident she agreed to a cease fire. Weapons have been put down. Peace, albeit a fragile one holds. The peace accord states that before mowing (Anna is Chief Mower as well) commences, I will remove the aforementioned molehills, putting the soil in my raised vegetable beds. 

This was not the first time I had shared my bedroom with a woodland creature and probably explains my inability to cope. When I was an adolescent and was about to nod off one night, I heard a commotion above me, followed by a thump. When I put the bedside light on I saw a sizeable hole in the ceiling with grass and other nesting detritus sticking through the cavity. Just then a squirrel's head popped up from the bottom of the duvet...and then another. “MUM! There're two squirrels in my bedroom!” My brother later soothed my PTSD by saying “It could have been worse, one of them could have run up your pyjama leg and said 'I'll eat one nut now and save the other for Christmas'”.

And on that festive note I wish you, dear reader, the happiest of Christmases and the best possible start to 2024. Now, I must finish, as I hear Anna coming down the stairs and I haven't done the washing up.