This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Why do bad things lurk in the bushes until there are enough of them to jump out and give you a really good bite on the bum when you are least expecting it? It’s like the much-used bus scenario – except we are so rural our nearest stop is well over two miles away. I am trying to keep calm – what’s the point of getting angry and stressed? Yoga helps me to chill, but due to circumstances I haven’t been able to go to any classes for almost a fortnight, so sometimes the hissing steam simply escapes from my lips.
What the hell, it’s probably better that everything comes at once. Once you are in a fighting mood, ready to tackle problems, you may as well sort all of them out. Better that than something negative happening once a day and being constantly miserable! And anyway, I’m a great believer that if you don’t experience the lows, you cannot possibly value the highs.
OK, last week my husband, my sister and my mother have all had to go to hospital, two of the three being admitted as emergencies. They are all fine now, but it was somewhat of a shock that so many close family members needed medical treatment. And whoa to hospital parking charges! Unbelievably expensive and where are you supposed to find quite so many £1 coins to feed those greedy ticket machines?
Other good news includes spotting our neighbour yesterday; he has returned with his screaming kids from their half term holiday and his constantly barking guard dogs will be back from the kennels and on patrol again any minute now.
Then the boiler broke down just as the weather got frosty again. It was quite cosy watching TV under a duvet with the old man last night. Even if our gloves made it harder to operate the channel controller.
And the plummeting temperatures have encouraged an invasion of scrabbling mice who are getting into our house goodness knows how (disconcertingly they have soft skulls and only need a hole the size of a pencil to squeeze through – see other fascinating facts about mice below). Plus we found something slightly larger in a mousetrap this morning. Not quite sure what it is but, as Louloulapomme so wittily put it when I asked if she could identify the little creature “I think you can weasily tell the difference as he is stoatally dead.”
Anyhow. Hey ho. Am just going to prioritise this gang of problems, tackle them one by one and hopefully, it won’t be too long before I can go back to my usual trouble-free way of life.
(As promised) Fascinating facts about mice that every countryside dweller should know:
Mice can squeeze through a 6mm gap.
Mice are driven indoors when it’s cold to seek more abundant food sources.
Mice see best in dim light. Their eyesight is weak, but their other senses are acute.
Mice teeth grow at a rate of 0.3mm every day.
Mice have a 10-inch vertical jump.
Mice can scale rough vertical surfaces up to 2m, and walk along thin ropes and wires.
Mice prefer to travel adjacent to walls and other edges.