Mouse House

On Friday, Bob (a neighbour’s cat) decided to catch a mouse, and bring it in to our house instead of his own one. I should point out that his ‘real’ name isn’t Bob, but he’s one of Ant and Dec, both of whom are standard black and white moggies. However for reasons unknown to me, I called him Bob when he first came round to visit, and the name stuck. He’s not an Ant or a Dec, but he is a Bob. There’s a third black-and-white cat from somewhere else, and he’s just called Not Bob. (or !Bob, in geek) In a similar way, the Ginger/White cat from the other side is named (to me) Ginger Bill. I have no idea what his real name is.

Anyway, I digress

The mouse was still alive, and Bob was going play with it. Psycho Cat, on the other hand, just looked on with disdain – it wasn’t tuna, he wasn’t interested. Hound was apparently slightly orbital about the presence of a New Furry Monster in the kitchen.

Next thing Herself knew, Bob and Psycho Cat had disappeared, and there was no sign of Mouse. She thought Bob had taken Mouse with him to continue ‘playing’.

Wrong.

We figured this might’ve been an incorrect assumption when we got up Saturday morning to find Bob standing guard around the kitchen units, and Hound sniffing around any time Bob wasn’t there. It looked like Mouse had escaped, and hidden himself somewhere.

We were out Saturday night, and there was no real sign of Mouse by the time we got back – except that cats were still lurking.

Today, Herself sent me a photo…

Mouse, hiding in the printer

Look carefully, and there the little sod is, hiding in the printer. Apparently Herself started printing something, the printer made some vile noises, and Mouse poked his head out to see what was going on. Psycho Cat at this time was on the windowsill just next to the printer, and did – as expected – absolutely nothing.

Irritation – Follow Up

As it turns out, the irritation on my foot from the hornet sting now appears to have eased off.

I took a dollop of Piriton anti-histamine this morning, and all now seems to be fine again. Thank chuff.

Hornetage

Until this weekend, I’d never even seen a hornet.

This weekend though, we’ve had five of the buzzy bastards in the house, including one which stung me. Not, it has to be said, the most positive introduction to the species.

We don’t know where they’ve been coming from – no signs of a nest anywhere around etc., but they’re definitely making their presence felt.

The sting was kind-of my own fault – Herself told me there was one in the bathroom, and I went in to splat the sodding thing. Being aware that it was a flying buzzing thing, I was looking in the air for it, not on the floor – and so I stood near it, which was apparently enough provocation to the fucker.

I’ve never been stung by one before either, so had no idea what to expect – or even whether I was allergic to the stings or not. (Fortunately, it looks like I’m not) Liberal dollops of antihistamine cream and some ibuprofen later, all’s been OK today. But I can tell you for sure that the sting hurts like a motherfucker.

Hopefully that’ll be my last dealing with hornets. But if they are making a home somewhere close by, it probably won’t be. I’ll be damn sure to be wearing shoes next time though.