VERMIN RETURN

It is patently obvious that my house gets the five star rating from the local mice. The Ritz of the rodents! I reckon it is very probably ideal. I am away most weekends for four days so they have the house to themselves and it must be a shock when this great lumbering creature re-occupies with her dog. I understand their point of view. However my point of view is that I don't want to share my home with a lot of highly incontinent mice. The smell is foul and it increases the housework load and my cleaner threatens to defect if I don't get rid of them. Besides they are cheeky little buggers and after meeting one eye to eye on my draining board I brought a zeal to my anti mouse purge.

I got the pest control people in and killed some with poison, they died and festered under my white goods, rotted and stank. They were removed and I had seen none of the tell -tale signs of mice for more than a week. 'Hooray!' I thought, they are gone. I was wrong.

On Tuesday evening I came back from a lovely day out with friends I hadn't seen for fifteen years and I was cooking quietly thinking nice thoughts, going over conversations we had had earlier in the day, smiling at our memories of trying to join a group of pagans who greeted us with a phalanx of hostile backs, speaking of our first meeting and genrally indulging in deja vu of the best class. It is always slightly odd rejoining friends you haven't seen for this long, will we still like one another? have they changed ? have I? But it had all worked wonderfully well as we sat and drank milk shakes and talked and talked. I liked them even more than before or I had forgotten this easy closeness. I smiled to myself feeling mellow.

This silence is rare for me, a radio 4 addict. Usually I arrange to cook when I listen to the Archers or when Moral Maze is on and I yell at the ghastly Melanie. Or listen to Any Questions and take an active part, one of the advantages of living alone.is the freedom to listen to annoying people and shriek. In fact I seek out the Atkinses of this world to give me a nice rush of fury, and when, as sometimes happens I agree with her, I worry about my integrity.

In my ruminative quiet state I heard a metallic noise I listened intently and there it was again a rustling against metal located in my balanced flu water heater. The sound unbalanced me totally . Mice! I gave it a whack. Nothing. I remembered once before that mice had set up residence and fortified themselves with eating the plastic round the electric wires, dangerous this and could cost me a lot of money. I opened the bottom part of the heater and a confetti of chewed bedding and the ever present mouse turds descended on to the counter beneath. They are back in force. A new crew ready to take advantage of the superior facilities and my sloppy housekeeping. I put bleach in water and wash all the counters. I had had all holes cemented after their last incursion . It was mouse-proof I thought. The mice thought otherwise and now that I am away again I try not to worry. And I feel feeble about the mice because I don't even dislike them and when they are dead they are cute little creatures.with sweet wee faces that would soften the hardest heart but when they scuttle under my feet and startle me with a sudden impromptu appearance, then it's me or them and its got to be me! So watch it next time I'm home.
The guy next door tells me he is getting the mouse worriers in on Monday and I only hope they don't all trot in retreat into my house again.
PS This blog got caught in the works was supposed to go up last week, since then no mice are apparent but I am not entirely reassured they are crafty little varmints!