Here's to the weekend!

I've not had too much to post about this past week and I always thought that unless I were trying to NaBlo, you shouldn't just spurt out random rubbish. Still, I've missed typing away so I thought I should probably pop my head in and say "hey, I'm still alive!"

Tomorrow is the start of my weekend as we board the coach for County Durham. I've got a million and one things that need to be sorted but I'm so very hot and I can't open the windows to cool off...hayfever season is well and truly here and I've burnt up about three forests worth of tissues today alone! Plus I've been awake since half five when three young *ahem* gentlemen crashed a car into (I assume from the looks of the scene) the school gates opposite my bedroom and woke me up before fleeing the scene (leading to the initial conclusion that the damned thing must have been stolen but who knows huh...).

Alas, despite the fact that I'm tired and streaming mucus and wanna just curl up in bed with the fan on me, chores need to be done. For one, I need to pack (not too an arduous task) and I need to run through the kitchen and bathroom with the bleach and a scrubber...not that either is particularly horrendous, indeed I've actually grown a taste for this housekeeping gig...but I always have terrible visions of coming back from time away to find creatures growing and/or breeding in the flat.

This isn't helped by the fact that for all I know there already are little creatures growing and/or breeding in the place while we're already here. Ben swore that he'd heard scratching in the walls for a while and then on, I think, Thursday night last week, we heard an almighty loud SQUEAK...oh yes, we had mice and they were fighting amongst each other.

Ben named "the mouse" Benedict. It's a little tradition we have...it's not the first time we've had mice in here and last time I believe we had Sir Cuthbert and Count Friedrick von Squeakenburg. A lot of people are afraid of mice, and when they appear out of seemingly no where and dash at lightening speed accross your living room floor it can be quite startling. Naming the mice was one of the ways in which we managed to overcome our anxieties and illogical and ill placed fear of them. It is a good technique right up until the point you have to dispatch them and find yourself even more illogically emotionally attached to them. Sadly we've no place to let them free without putting others at risk of an invasion, and that to me is irresponsible considering the disease they potentially carry. Sending them as humanely as possible to mousey heaven by hand was usually the only option (when for example the snap trap only caught their leg or they found themselves in a glue trap and unable to move but very much alive). We've both spilled a few tears over those furry little darlings.

Saturday, shortly after posting my last blog whilst Ben was at work, something caught the corner of my eye. I turned to see Benedict staring up at me from under the desk.

Look at him...taunting me with his mousey eyes...

 He made a few more appearences from there. I groaned inwardly, but when Ben got home we decided it was probably high time we moved the desk out from its resting place and take a peak underneath which hadn't happened since we rolled it into place the first time two and a half years ago, and something which filled us with trepidation since it is up on wheels and has a solid shelf bottom on which to place the computer...in other words there was quite a considerable area of carpet that hadn't seen the light of day for a looong time.

What we found was more or less as bad as we expected and Ben got to cleaning. I'll admit I had to step back and allow him to do the lion's share since the dust was making me ill, though despite what he will say I did do an awful lot of decluttering and sorting and organizing of various belongings which had over the years migrated to that part of the flat. Behind the desk is a small shelf like skirting board which I presume acts as a cover for the hot water pipes leading from the boiler to the kitchen and bathroom... it had a few little mousey presents on it so we scrubbed it with bleach (you may or may not have guessed, but when it comes to making sure things are SUPER CLEAN I will automatically reach for a cleaner containing bleach. I love the chlorine smell...makes me think mmmm clean...). We also cleaned out a cubby hole by the desk underneath the kitchen counter (our flat is open plan so this cubby hole is in the back of the kitchen cupboards if that makes sense...) where the pipes emerge and the mice seem to have been using as an entry point. We had been storing old games and VHS's (which we no longer have a player for so go figure) which I have been begging Ben to get rid of since we were still in a shared student house. We also bleached the hell out of this, especially around the presumed mouse holes. We hoovered and dusted and chucked old junk out and bleached some more for good measure, hoping that the strong smell would discourage any further emergences of the little beasts.

We looked upon our achievement with pride, cleared and decluttered and dusted, we had managed to clean up and clear a not inconsiderable area which was previously unusable (and space in our tiny flat is at a premium).

And then little Benedict came waddling along the freshly bleached skirting board, looking at us as if to say "wow chaps, thanks for the room service!"

So we've set the traps. He made very public appearences all throughout the weekend right up until yesterday...I've no doubt he's still around, just biding his time...my fear is that "while the cats are away the mice will play" and especially fear that he may end up in the trap and start to stink the place out while we're away. Still, we can't just leave him to it. Sigh.

Well anyway, tomorrow whether or not he be around, whether or not the bathroom be pristine, whether or not my nose is running like Niagara Falls, we'll be headed up North to celebrate Easter and Birthday merriment and I am very much looking forward to it!