Yep, more rodent-related shizz.
So … this week it’s half term and we’ve been on the road. I’ve realised we are going to be on the road the entire length of all our holidays until summer 2021. This is kind of good, we have exciting plans afoot, but also a little daunting from the point of view of my organising my life at all over this period, let alone doing any writing … Never mind. I’m sure I’ll work something out.
After last week’s exciting vole-centric adventure you may not be expecting any more up-close rodent-related action on my part – and who could blame you – but you’d be wrong.
Visiting my brother and family for the first weekend in half term we looked out of the window and noticed a little mouse on their bird feeder. A very sweet little brown mouse, no less, with a white tummy.
‘Aaawwwww,’ we all said.
And then I looked closer.
‘Hang on, is it stuck?’ I asked.
‘Hmm … might be,’ the others said.
Only one way to find out. I went outside and discovered that, yes, it was, indeed stuck. The bird feeder was an iron pole with two curled arms welded on either side from which to hang bird seed dispensers. Where they joined the main stem was a small gap and the mouse had got its leg stuck in it. It’s foot was very red but not purple, which I hoped was a reasonable sign. It was healthy, its fur luxuriantly shiny and I reckoned it would be fine if it didn’t rip it’s own leg off before I could free it. So with one hand, I held the mouse and with the other I tried to pry the arm of the feeder out a little so I could release its leg.
Nothing doing.
My sis in-law arrived and I asked her to hold the mouse and try to lift it upwards while I pulled the arm of the feeder outwards to widen the gap.
This did not go well.
I suggested we swapped as I got the impression she wasn’t enjoying holding the mouse. Except that the mouse was seriously unimpressed with the entire proceedings by now and had clearly decided the safest, and most prudent, course of action would be to make the big pink things manhandling it go away by biting them.
For a few seconds as I fumbled with it. I managed not to get bitten but then, as the mouse attacked what it clearly considered to be, the lumbering pink fleshy thing which was trying to envelop it in a hot, clammy, marsh-mallowy embrace – or maybe it just thought my fingers were attack sausages, I dunno – with renewed vigour it finally succeeded.
Yes, it got a firm grip on my thumb and bit it. Hard.
Oops.
‘Hold it by the scruff of the neck,’ my sis in-law suggested.
Good plan. Holding the scruff of its neck, carefully, and bleeding all the while, I gently lifted it up while she held the iron bits a little further apart. I put it on the plate of seeds in the middle of the feeder. It bounced off as if it had been shot from a cannon and ran into the undergrowth.
One of us was OK then, even if it was dragging its leg a bit, it looked as if it was going to be able to get around alright. I looked at the blood running down the side of my thumb.
Bro and sis in-law were extremely concerned that I’d die of rabies while McOther, rather cheekily in my view, expressed doubts that any rabidness displayed on my part would result in a noticeable change of behaviour or temperament. We put antiseptic cream on it anyway, and a plaster, but fearful that I might die on their watch, bro and sis in-law rang sis in-law’s mum and step dad who are both GPs. They endorsed our actions and asked if I’d have a tetanus jab recently. I’ve no clue if I have or not. Now I’m back, I might pop into my GPs surgery and ask but I suspect it’s OK, and if it isn’t a week after the event is probably too late anyway.
This reminds me of the story I didn’t have room for last week, and would rather like to tell you now! At my last grief counselling session, I told the grief counsellor about the vole. It turned out she had her own sorry (but hilarious) tale of rodent related social horror.
Some years ago, the counsellor had a cat and the cat tended to catch things and bring them indoors where it would lose interest and forget about them. Yeh, I know, cats do this, they’re gross. Sometimes, it was a case of removing the body, other times it was a case of never knowing until something started nibbling at things left out on the kitchen side or died and ponged. On this occasion, her cat had brought a large rat indoors. Said rat, knackered and a bit stunned but otherwise, basically, OK, had hidden. The cat, unable to find the rat, had lost interest and wandered away, leaving the rat nestled in its warm dark hiding place, sleeping it off.
Image may be NSFW.
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Our friend the counsellor had no idea the cat had brought anything into the house and so unaware that there was a large rat … well … at large in her house, she put on her jumper and headed out to Palmers department store, in Bury St Edmunds. As she browsed the kitchen section she realised she could feel a lump in the shoulder of her jumper.
Can you see where this is going? Yep I bet you can.
‘Dammit, I’ve got a sock down there or something,’ she thought.
She put her hand up and felt the lump, at which point it squeaked. She gasped and held her jumper out by the hem in a kind of ‘what is this?’ manner, at which point the rat leapt off her shoulder and out of her jumper, or should that be out of her jumper and off her shoulder? The rat fell to the floor and ran off. She saw it disappear behind a display of saucepans and stood, in a state of shocked surprise, very possibly doing a little low key hyperventilating at the same time. I can neither confirm nor deny that about the hyperventilating, though, as I forgot to ask her.
Well, that was grim. She’d been walking around town with a rat in her jumper. But, on the up side, it wasn’t there anymore and, bonus, it hadn’t had a wee or poo while it was in there.
Every cloud has a silver lining eh?
What to do now though? Dare she go up to the counter and explain that she had inadvertently released vermin into their auspicious premises? She looked over at the stern, matronly ladies stationed at the till.
No, not really.
She looked around her.
There were some shoppers about and two women nearby but no-one appeared have noticed her moment of horror.
She could say something to one of the ladies at the till … she could and she probably should … or … not.
Yes. Right then. Probably time for a sharp exit.
As she turned and walked towards the door, the two women who’d been near her headed towards the display of saucepans. Oooo. The counsellor took a deep breath and with her best and fastest nothing-to-see-here walk, she stepped up her pace. Just outside, in the street, she heard a blood curdling scream as one of the women picked up a saucepan from the display, revealing the rat. I imagine it was rather bedraggled after doing battle with the cat, and possibly a bit spiky haired from jumper static. In my mind’s eye, I see it squinting back at her or, perhaps, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
The counsellor paused for a fraction of a second as more screaming ensued. Once again, she thought about returning and explaining, and again she imagined how well that might go, whether they would believe her, if charges would be pressed and … Yeh. She kept walking.
Apparently, the rat in Palmers episode was quite famous in town folklore. No-one ever knew how it got there, and my bereavement counsellor – who I am not going to name – has carried the secret of its origins for many years. She has given me permission to finally let the cat, or should that be the rat? Out of the bag on my blog.
So now you know …
On the book front … glory be but Gareth managed to pull book four out of the hat before he went off on tour. Despite Storm Dennis, Windy Ethel, Farty Fred, Gusty Georgina or whoever we’re onto now. Fine work Gareth! Thank you, if you’re reading this (but I suspect he has better things to do). Then the book sat there on my phone, and I couldn’t listen, because you can’t really do that while you’re visiting relations, it’s quite rude. And while I think it’s fine if you’re all hanging out reading books together and chatting from time to time, sticking ear phones in and listening to something is definitely antisocial. I did manage the odd listen in the loo, or ten minutes or so before I got out of bed in the morning.
And …
Apart from the fact the anticipation has nearly killed me you mean?
Well, yes. Of course it’s fabulous.
It’s so gob-smackingly fabulous that, hang the expense, I’ll have to pay him proper money to do the other books. I was also surprised that for all the darkness in the story, books three and four made me laugh out loud … quite a lot. Yeh. I’m so horrifically egocentric that I laugh at my own books but obviously I’m going to lay the blame squarely on Gareth’s sense of comic timing. Yeh. Your fault Gareth. Nyar-nyar! But actually, it is pretty spot on so I reckon I can justifiably do that. I’m on chapter 28 so I’ll keep you posted on progress.