08:00 Lois and I are calmly drinking our tea in bed when I remember that the Borough Council's "Mouse Inspector" is due to be making his second visit to us this morning, and officially he could arrive at any time between 8:30 am and 1 pm. Yikes!
a typical "mouse inspector", employed by the Borough Council
As it happens the inspector doesn't arrive till 9:30 am.
He starts inspecting the traps that he laid for our mouse or mice last Thursday. We haven't heard any mice for a week, so we're afraid that he'll say the traps haven't been touched, but no - several have had their bait nibbled at, he reports, which is a relief. Hopefully those mice will have gone back to their lairs feeling less than 100%, to put it mildly.
typical mice, feasting on a meal of mousetrap bait - yum yum!
The inspector takes all the pieces of bait out of the traps, and then reinserts them the other way round - so when he comes next Thursday, he'll be able to check whether the mice are still rampaging around and taking nibbles, or whether they've been "neutralised". What a brainwave. Simples but effective - this guy knows what he's doing, that's for sure!!!!
10:00 Lois goes for a walk round the local football field and inspects the damage done by Storm Barra earlier in the week - she reports that the telegraph poles look okay, but sadly some guy has had his fence blown down: poor guy !!!!!
Lois's quick local survey suggests that the neighbourhood
telegraph poles look in good shape....
...but that some guy has had his fence blown down by Storm Barra
- poor little guy!!!!
I don't join Lois on her walk today - I have to stay in for the delivery guy from Waghorne's, the butcher's shop in the village, although he actually doesn't come till 1:15 pm, as it turns out.
It's not really a "walk day" for me anyway. Connor, my NHS physiotherapist, has scheduled "List B" exercises for me today: fortunately I got up at 6 am to do them, before going back to bed feeling all righteous and pleased with myself, which was nice.
14:00 After lunch we think about clearing some space in the larder, which is the area with most signs of mouse activity. We have a floor cabinet in there that's full of dishes and crockery etc that we never use, so I start getting some of these out on to the kitchen table, for Lois to decide what we do with them - i.e. put them somewhere else, or take them to a charity shop, or whatever. We know that mice have been in the cabinet.
I take some of the superfluous crockery out of the floor cabinet in the larder
and put it on the kitchen table, for its fate to be decided by Lois
Lois showcases the floor cabinet in the larder. The Mouse Inspector
has put one of his dark green traps by the side of it
same picture as above, but with the dark green
mouse trap highlighted
Unfortunately Lois finds even more mouse-droppings in the kitchen, proving that the little buggers have been in more places than we realised, including under the kitchen sink, where there is no food or waste whatsoever - what a crazy mindset those mice have got!!!!! What's the matter with them? Don't they know to concentrate on food sources - I wonder what they teach them at mouse school these days?
20:00 We watch the final of the Grand Designs 2021 "House of the Year" show.
Presenter Kevin McCloud must be bored out of his mind trying to make these typical "Grand Designs"- style houses sound different from each other. He describes one short-listed house this evening as "a breath of fresh air", which is stretching the truth a bit, Lois and I feel: "breath of stale air, perhaps"?
Admittedly, the shortlisted houses look different on the outside, and of course they are all in different settings, but inside they're all exactly the same.
inside this year's winning house....
... and these are the 2 old codgers who are going to be
rattling around in this pointlessly enormous house
And like with this year's winning house, even if the residents are just a couple of old codgers like Lois and me, the houses they seem to want to live in are all massively and pointlessly enormous, and have to tick all these boxes:
This week Lois and I were excited to see a letter in the current issue of Radio Times, saying just a few of the things we've been saying about "Grand Designs" houses for years.
Hail to thee, Kirstine Oswald of Bonnyrigg, Midlothian! You kept us out of war haha !!!
Our only regret is that Lois and I didn't get off our backsides years ago and write a similar (and indeed longer) letter, with even more damning accusations against the programme. We could have won a DVD like Kirstine has.
Too late now!!!!
Damn !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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