Eye of Newt

Eye of newt and wing of bat and back in the kitchen a resident rat. 

A sizeable youngster this time.  And nimble, despite being bloated on the stale Hovis and pumpkin flesh he dragged out of the plastic sack by the log house.

As irksome as it is to admit, Gaylord really knows his onions when it comes to rats. And what a sight he looked, poking around in the study cupboard with a scarf obscuring his face and parcel string tied around the bottom of his slacks.

“They go for the throat,” he said, shaking out a lurid green wool blanket that looked as though it could have carried bubonic plague to Eyam but, more likely, caught my mother’s eye in the Green Shield Stamp catalogue.

Ice Baby and I stayed on top of the piano. Just to be on the safe side. It proved to be the best possible vantage point because as soon as G had opened the second cupboard door, young rat leapt out, scurried across the parquet and disappeared down a hole at the side of the roll-top.

I have telephoned two rat-catchers this week but neither of them have returned my calls. It’s annoying but strangely comforting to imagine that we are not the only family in the county hosting unwanted vermin

A farmer friend advised setting a steel trap with a chunk of Mars Bar on the spike. In the orangery of all places.  But Nelson, our parrot, is partial to chocolate and enjoys an early morning stroll out there, so it’s out of the question.

We need Professional Help. If only we could get it.

A Most Agreeable Soulmate

My friend The Actress has bought a griffin. A lady griffin. Very regal.  Buffed talons, bright beady eyes, a ruff of gleaming bronze scales and a magnificent spear-tapered tail.

“I can’t begin to tell you how extraordinarily happy she makes me,” The Actress told me as she reclined on the day bed sipping her customary Wolfblass.

I’d make house room for a dragon or a dodo but I’m not a griffin enthusiast as a rule. But there’s something about this one. Perhaps, the way she sits disdainfully on the sill with her tail coiled gracefully around her hind legs.

We both stood there side by side, gazing out through the picture window as we stroked the griffin’s head and traced her scales and talons with our fingers.

I cannot imagine how unfair life as a widow must seem. It is little under two years since my dear friend The Actress lost her husband.

And yes, she’s perky, industrious, infectiously optimistic and terribly glamorous but I suspect she is doing her level best to check her resolve. Resolve that must be needed to deal with the paralysing grief of losing a soul mate.

So on a chill morning when the sky is streaked with the frozen pinks of the north, my dear friend’s griffin seems a most agreeable companion.

Resident Rat

He looked peaceful. Despite the scrunched claws and glistening grey lips pared back from his jutting yellow teeth, he looked like he was asleep.

But how had he ended up dead in the middle of the trampoline? Had a miscalculated star jump followed by a triple pike caused a severed spine? Had he been dropped by a carrion crow?

We have trouble with the crows who live in the neighbour’s copse. They throw toast down all the chimney pots and peer suspiciously in through the top casements.

Had he been thrown over the garden wall by a passing prankster?

It was too tidy a scene for a haphazard late-night lob. His thick grey tail was too neatly laid out, his whiskers too proud for him to have been thrown.

However, whatever, he was no more.

We have enjoyed much sport with our resident rat during the summer months. He’s been sauntering in and out of the open back door since March.

Late night forays in through the stop pipe gap into the kitchen cupboards, gluttonous feasting on the crumbs beneath the toaster, chewing the carpet in the corners of every downstairs room, even gnawing through the fur and gristle of an ancient stuffed fox in the dining room.

He’s had a fine old time. Trotting back to his subterranean gaff most mornings, ignoring the respectful gaze of The Labradors, skirting the shoe-box-sized plastic rat trap.

He has popped, pooped and pattered. And now he’s gone.

I took a photo of him. Lying there in the sunshine. In the middle of the trampoline.

Gaylord wore a latex milking glove to scoop him up.

And then all of us; Ice Baby, Sister P and The Moomster processed solemnly to the wheelie bin, the grey one where our rat had enjoyed so many industrious hours.

And silently watched as G laid him inside next to an empty Chappie tin.

“Where there’s one rat, there’s always a dozen more,” he announced.

“You’re wrong,” I said. “We’re a One Rat family.”

But it’s what I so love about Gaylord. He’s always right on these occasions.

The kettle had barely boiled when I saw a large furry ball attached to a long grey tail scuttle across the garden path.