I have a little bit of form with mice. My first mouse was given to me, with several expressed reservations and a cage,by my Grandfather. I was eight, it was probably about sixteen in mouse years. The mouse was white, and soon became grubby. So I decided to give it a bath. In the bath. Mice can swim, up to a point. However, the poor thing got cramp,and no wonder, suddenly being dropped in the equivalent of the Channel. It drew its legs up, and I thought they had come off. Panicking, I fished it out and ran bawling to Mum "My mouse's legs have come off...."
She sighed,and put the oven on. The David Walliams of the mouse world was wrapped in cotton wool, fed brandy through an eye-dropper, and popped into the oven on a low light.My brother, then three, gazed with wide-eyed horror.."Mum's cooking a mouse!"
It was happily dry and deeply pissed within minutes, so we watched it staggering round the cage until it passed out on the straw.We've all been there.
The trouble with mice is that they are not natural singletons. Where you see mouse, there will be mice. A large and boisterous family lived with me in Huskisson St. They were, admittedly, given to weeing on everything, but then so had my previous flatmates been, and the mice were prettier. As my food cupboards contained very little to detain them, they jilted me and moved next door. Next door were vegetarian, and given to big brown paper bags full of dried beans and alfafa. Mousie Heaven.
When I left home, my Mother took up with mice, in a big way. She also branched out into hamsters and guinea pigs, but eventually shunned the latter on the grounds of intellectual incompatibility. They are monumentally stupid, even for dumb animals, and they make a maddening "weeep-weeep" noise all the time unless they are dead. Which, as she also she got a few cats here and there, they often were. "I have had to forgo rodents" she lamented to a friend, after a couple of distressing examples of Nature Being Red In Tooth And Claw. The cats were delighted;they thought she was raising organic food for them.
I inherited a cat when I lived in Hornsey Rise. My next doors there had a pond in their garden. I had French windows opening from my ground floor bedroom into the garden.The pond held frogs.For a while. I would just be settling down with a nice thick book (or a friend who had read one) ,when a Godawful racket would reach my ears from beneath the bed. Then I would have to go and chase frogs round the room. The Cat was given to slaying them, and judging from their expressions they had not expired peacefully.She would then arrange them on my pillow, in order of size. I expect she meant well but I could really have done without them. It's one of those unwanted gifts, an array of dead frogs. "Oh, you shouldn't have..."
I don't mind Nature but I like it kept outside. I don't bother it, and I was hoping that it would reciprocate. But not a bit of it. One of the reasons I moved to London was because I had heard it was paved. And yet, I had to deal with uninvited wildlife all the time. Socking great moths getting themselves into ridiculous Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em situations in lampshades, Stag beetles in my underwear drawer (perhaps they thought it was a Stag party) in Walthamstow, Goliath spiders in Chingford, flies in the buttermilk shoo shoo shoo. And in Enfield, I was horribly bitten on the thigh by a Bee, and they are supposed to be a) off making honey and assaulting the flowers, and b) NOT up my skirt in front of students.
I am never quite sure of what eats what, though. I am not keen on flies, but then am abjectly terrified of spiders. But would the spiders hoover up a few moths and save my jumpers, if left to run alive like it says you ought to? Quid Pro Quo. I know they are all God's Creatures, but wouldn't He like a few back?
Meanwhile, we had a builder who was very scared of mice. He had to go into the attic and do wiry things. I had to stand at the bottom of the ladder with a torch, ready to catch him if one made a sudden move.And all mousemoves are sudden, aren't they? The mouse is not a languid creature. As he stood, pale and anxious, on top of the stepladder, I reflected that it was probably not the time to mention that my Mother saves her toast crusts up for them, he would think he was working with the Addams Family.
She sighed,and put the oven on. The David Walliams of the mouse world was wrapped in cotton wool, fed brandy through an eye-dropper, and popped into the oven on a low light.My brother, then three, gazed with wide-eyed horror.."Mum's cooking a mouse!"
It was happily dry and deeply pissed within minutes, so we watched it staggering round the cage until it passed out on the straw.We've all been there.
The trouble with mice is that they are not natural singletons. Where you see mouse, there will be mice. A large and boisterous family lived with me in Huskisson St. They were, admittedly, given to weeing on everything, but then so had my previous flatmates been, and the mice were prettier. As my food cupboards contained very little to detain them, they jilted me and moved next door. Next door were vegetarian, and given to big brown paper bags full of dried beans and alfafa. Mousie Heaven.
When I left home, my Mother took up with mice, in a big way. She also branched out into hamsters and guinea pigs, but eventually shunned the latter on the grounds of intellectual incompatibility. They are monumentally stupid, even for dumb animals, and they make a maddening "weeep-weeep" noise all the time unless they are dead. Which, as she also she got a few cats here and there, they often were. "I have had to forgo rodents" she lamented to a friend, after a couple of distressing examples of Nature Being Red In Tooth And Claw. The cats were delighted;they thought she was raising organic food for them.
I inherited a cat when I lived in Hornsey Rise. My next doors there had a pond in their garden. I had French windows opening from my ground floor bedroom into the garden.The pond held frogs.For a while. I would just be settling down with a nice thick book (or a friend who had read one) ,when a Godawful racket would reach my ears from beneath the bed. Then I would have to go and chase frogs round the room. The Cat was given to slaying them, and judging from their expressions they had not expired peacefully.She would then arrange them on my pillow, in order of size. I expect she meant well but I could really have done without them. It's one of those unwanted gifts, an array of dead frogs. "Oh, you shouldn't have..."
I don't mind Nature but I like it kept outside. I don't bother it, and I was hoping that it would reciprocate. But not a bit of it. One of the reasons I moved to London was because I had heard it was paved. And yet, I had to deal with uninvited wildlife all the time. Socking great moths getting themselves into ridiculous Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em situations in lampshades, Stag beetles in my underwear drawer (perhaps they thought it was a Stag party) in Walthamstow, Goliath spiders in Chingford, flies in the buttermilk shoo shoo shoo. And in Enfield, I was horribly bitten on the thigh by a Bee, and they are supposed to be a) off making honey and assaulting the flowers, and b) NOT up my skirt in front of students.
I am never quite sure of what eats what, though. I am not keen on flies, but then am abjectly terrified of spiders. But would the spiders hoover up a few moths and save my jumpers, if left to run alive like it says you ought to? Quid Pro Quo. I know they are all God's Creatures, but wouldn't He like a few back?
Meanwhile, we had a builder who was very scared of mice. He had to go into the attic and do wiry things. I had to stand at the bottom of the ladder with a torch, ready to catch him if one made a sudden move.And all mousemoves are sudden, aren't they? The mouse is not a languid creature. As he stood, pale and anxious, on top of the stepladder, I reflected that it was probably not the time to mention that my Mother saves her toast crusts up for them, he would think he was working with the Addams Family.
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