(Warning: although there is no flash photography, there are scenes which may be disturbing to some.)
Normally, I use poison. (I did warn you.) But yesterday, Mr M and I managed to catch a mouse humanely (if having a large plastic box thrown on top of you and a larger piece of cardboard slipped smoothly under your bottom while you leap around like a giant flea counts as humane, which apparently it does to vermin-lovers.)
We managed to do this by a combination of speed, teamwork, planning, tupperware and enormous bravery, along with a determination to show this mouse exactly who should be afraid of whom.
I then carried it gently and almost lovingly up the garden while marvelling at it pretty eyes and how high it was managing to jump inside its box. Also its fatness and roundness and possibly pregnantness.)
I carried it a very long way up the garden, which is a very long garden. And I let it go amongst some shrubs that seemed to me to be either very good mouse habitat or else a very good place for it to meet a "natural" (and apparently therefore humane) death. (In fact, more likely a feline one, or else a freezing one.)
Mr M and I congratulated ourselves on a job well and humanely done.
An hour later, Mr M called me to the French windows, where we watched the mouse watch us. I think it was saying, "Well, that was nice, as far as it goes, but I'm back now." It practically knocked on the door, I tell you. Then it vanished. Last seen heading towards a tiny crack in the wall.
Last night, Mr M and I were woken by the home-coming party. What a scampering and popping of tiny champagne corks there was in the hall! I am absolutely convinced that while that mouse was outside, it was rounding up a whole load of garden mice and inviting them back to its (our) place for a hooley. Possibly, judging by that mouse's round belly, even to celebrate the imminent birth of a load more mice. How many mice can one (or, to be fair, presumably two) mice produce in a year? Don't answer that.
Next time, I swear, it's poison.
I became known as the Crabbit Old Bat because of my honest advice about writing and publishing on another blog. But I've stopped all that and gone back to being a children's writer. HOORAY! So, welcome. Share the pleasure, the pain and the chocolate. But wipe your feet first.
You need a big cat who means business.
ReplyDeleteI know. We've had cats and love them but have no intention of getting another - we have a dog, and when we had the cats she used to eat cat shit. FOUL!
DeleteThe chase is half the fun!! Not really...especially not at 4am in the summer when the cat brings a live one as a present when I manage to catch it in my hands. Only downside was that I had to do the release in the garden in the all-together, as I wasn't wearing PJ's at the time! Just had to hope that none of the neighbours were up early...
ReplyDeleteYikes!
DeleteSorry to break it to you - you're unlikely to have just one mouse. They tend to come in families. Especially at this time of year, when they are beginning to wonder if it isn't a little chilly in the garden compared with the nice warm gaps in your skirting boards. You might need to borrow a cat; or do Something Serious to Upset Lovers of Small Furry Things.
ReplyDeleteI know. But I'm afraid it's your last suggestion that will be The One.
DeleteLast time I rescued a mouse from the clutches of my cat...I wandered (not true, I ran...yowling) with it hanging off the tip of my finger where it had attached its teeth upon rescue from said cat. It didn't want to let go once I found a nice, new home (far up the garden) for it either. Next time I may be leaving the cat to its own devices...
ReplyDeleteI'd say get a cat, but they bring mice in too (to play with)!
OW!
DeleteSpike!
ReplyDeleteThis brought back so many memories for me. Where I used to live, out in a wood that backed onto farmland, every harvest time all the field mice would take the trip across the fence and into my house. I always had humane mice traps (4 of them) and one weekend I counted 27 who were retrieved and deposited a good 200 yards from the house. I can remember it feeling like a full time job of finding mouse, depositing it, washing the trap, drying it, putting muesli in, laying it down, picking up another trap to find a mouse and starting all over again. They were exceedingly cute though, but by the time we moved I was exceedingly sick of them. Oh yes, and they never, ever come in ones. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteNot a reassuring comment!
ReplyDeleteSorry - that was supposed to be attached to Vee's comment.
DeleteWe have 2 cats. But when we had a minor mouse infestation a few years back, the cats didn't touch the mice, assuming that because they were in the house they must be Family Pets and therefore not to be played with.
ReplyDeleteWe used the humane method too, but let them go a street-length away in some woodland. Final tally was hubby 5, me 2, son 1, natural causes 1, cats 0. Thankfully they didn't come back.
For some reason, probably tiredness, I read that as you saying that your hubby and son didn't come back...
DeleteTurning what I write into something that makes sense is usually left till the editing session. Which doesn't happen with blog comments, of course.
DeleteWas trying to comment on Help I Need A Publisher but absolutely was not able to even with daughter's Google Account. Ugh. Anywho just to say all these goodbyes have made me resort to thumb sucking. But if it must be a future in high concept novels then so be it. And yay.
ReplyDeleteI understood you won't be keeping up with Pen2 but I suppose the other two writer/editor contacts you mentioned in the past will?
How strange! Anyway, good to see you here and thank you, as ever, for your comment. Yes, the other two writer/editors are still available - just let me know if you want to contact them, by emailing me.
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