Another wet day. More time indoors reading books and old magazines. Dreaming of making cakes with lashings of cream but too lazy to actually go into the kitchen. Drinking lots of strong rich, sweet creamy espressos. When the weather is rubbish I snuggle down and spend time inside entertaining myself with challenging little projects like dusting the cactus plants! and doing more ordinary things like folding the laundry. And that is how we arrive at the subject of mice.
I went downstairs yesterday to look for something and realised that my washing that had been drying for the past 2 days in the tack room was now thoroughly dry. So I began to take it off the drying wrack and fold it, making a sensible little pile of folded linen on the rocking chair. I was in my own world, minding my business, folding T shirts when there was a thump and the sound of little feet scuttling across the stone floor but obviously having problems keeping a grip.
I looked over to the green sofa where the sound had emanated from and there were 2 frightened mice, running as fast as they could but not getting very far on the smooth stone floor. They had obviously fallen from wherever they had been hiding and taking a nap and had not expected to land so abruptly on such a cold hard surface. Their little feet were spinning and not getting a grip, it was like watching a ' Tom & Jerry cartoon.'
I tried not to laugh but they were having such a hard time keeping any control over their tiny skidding feet.
I watched as one came hurtling towards me, having obviously lost all control. Taking in the sight of my huge sheepskin slippers and realising that it was about to collide with a furry monster, mouse number one tried to change direction and ended up skidding into the wooden leg of the rocking chair. There was a bang as it's head made contact with the wood and at this point it let out a huge shocked squeak which I took to be the equivalent of a mouse swearing!
It bounced back from chair and collided with mouse number two who was in fast pursuit. They clung together in a rolling ball of fury. The roll had momentum and swept them across the floor where they slid and skidded to a halt under the bookshelf. There was a shocked silence for a second. I waited overwhelmed at what I had just seen.
Once the dust had settled the silence was followed by the sound of them chattering to each other, exchanging notes on what had just happened. I could almost see the bookshelf shaking and trembling with the 2 shocked mice squeezed behind it counting their lucky stars at managing such a dramatic escape from the sheepskin slipper monster!
At this point I spoke to my battered and bruised friends. I told them to calm down and get a grip of themselves and that my slippers meant them no harm. I informed them that I was going upstairs to make a cup of tea and give them time to recover. I asked mouse number one how his head was and commented on how loud his head had smacked into my rocking chair. I leave him to nurse his sore head and go upstairs to put the kettle on.
I came back down a few times to check on them but for the rest of the day the tack room was silent.
My life in this old stable block is like that. There is always some animal or insect hanging out at my place. I had watched the whole little mice scenario unfold on a wet Wednesday while folding my clothes. It only took a couple of minutes out of my day and is was probably the highlight.
Sometimes when I am sitting at this desk writing I can hear other rodents running across the roof over my head. They are very polite and keep themselves to themselves, so I don't mind sharing my place with them.
Yesterday I found a wasp trying to hide in the folds of my bedroom curtain. I told him he could stay if he behaved. Sadly the ladybird trying to make it's way across the kitchen floor was not so lucky and got stepped on. My mistake. Sorry.
Living in what is basically a converted barn means a constant flow of creatures and creepy crawlies coming in and out of my flat. Above is one of the white doves who occasionally visits me in the kitchen or the lounge.
I think I draw children and animals to me ...
In the Spring I came back to my car after church to find a baby Raven with the most beautiful eyes nestled up against my front tyre. I bent down to take a look and he just stared up at me with the deepest of blue eyes. I've never seen eyes like them. Clean & bright and deep blue. I didn't know you could get birds with blue eyes. I don't usually get to look a bird directly in the eye.
He didn't appear injured or wounded so I couldn't work out how he got there and what he was doing. I didn't want to move him because he looked so happy and comfortable, so I decided to do a little shopping and come back in an hour when hopefully he would have moved on.
When I returned he was still there, snoozing against my tyre. Maybe he was sick and it was actually a wish to finish it all that had drawn him with suicidal thoughts towards my tyre! Or maybe it was a misplaced affection for something dark and big that reminded him of his mother. Anyway, I bent down and picked him up and placed him against a tree trunk. I told him there was no way I was going to finish his life for him by running him over and that he should just get over this infatuation with my tyre and move onto something more compatible. He looked at me through those big beautiful blue eyes as if to say ... " I love you. I need you. Don't leave me here ..."
It was very hard but I made myself turn away and left him there with the tree trunk for company.
Over the summer I took my nephew to watch an arty French film that featured a red balloon. On leaving we were both given a red balloon as a parting gift. We made our way down to the river where I was planning to fold our paper tickets into paper boats so that we could race them down the stream.
While walking along the river bank one of us got our red ballon too close to the stinging nettles and it burst with the loudest unexpected BANG! We startled a duck who was resting just below us in the reeds. She burst out of the foliage quacking and flying round and round in circles in blind panic. She thought she had been shot and was having a heart attack & would not calm down until every other duck on the river had been told about it and someone had come over to comfort her. The flying in circles and screaming went on for a full minute and set William and I off laughing so hard that I nearly wet myself. I think it was the way we had so spectacularly shattered the quiet polite atmosphere of Godalming and thrown the peaceful afternoon into such unexpected noisy chaos that tickled us.
I love sharing my life and my living space with wildlife. It's as much their place as mine really ....
I wonder if I will get an invite to my little friend's wedding ?!