I am all alone here tonight. Linda is staying with friends in Young and going on to West Wyalong tomorrow to pick up her mother and bring her back to Canberra. She should be home late tomorrow I would imagine and I can’t say I won’t mind the free time. Life is great, don’t worry about that but there are times I like to be by myself and I can appreciate some solitude when I am lucky enough to get it.
It’s been an average week and I haven’t really got anything to write about that is going to keep anyone glued to their computer screens but it is my life and I enjoy writing about it!
We have a mouse plague in Canberra at the moment. The wet summer we have had has provided plenty of food for mice and they are booming apparently. We have been warned that as soon as Canberra gets hit by frosts our little grey friends will move inside with us. Now we are prone to a few mice here at our place at the best of times but I lay a lot of bait and it seems to keep it under control. However last night the little rodents ate nearly two packets of bait in the cupboard under the sink. There will be some crook mice around our place tonight! I’m not sure what else I can do. I plugged up the little hole behind the dishwasher with steel wool when we replaced our machine but they must have eaten through that. Our place is a bit of a pig stye at times so there is a bit of stuff around for them to eat but hopefully laying baits will keep them at bay.
We always had the odd mouse at my Mum and Dad’s place but I never saw one the entire time I lived in Stanfield Close which was 11 years! Maybe the cat was a deterrent or there wasn’t any holes in walls for them to get through but I was glad not to have that sort of company. Ants were my biggest problem in that house. But I won’t bore anyone who’s reading with that story!
Now I am hunkered down in my bedroom at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen and hopefully any mice who visit tonight get the same as those of last night.
There is an “interesting” woman who I have worked with for many years who is as mad as a cut snake. She keeps pet mice and rats but also encourages wild field mice into her house and feeds them. Yuck! I can only imagine the filth that she lives in and unfortunately the mice seem to be her life as she has few friends and has alienated those who have tried to be nice to her. I get along with her okay but there are many at the mail centre who don’t. It’s sad but life is what you make it and mental illness and an unwillingness to accept it and deal with it has lead her to this place. She is due to retire soon and I wonder how she is going to go on the “outside”.
As cruel as it is my workmates and I have joked that it may be a case that someone finds her in her flat after she has been dead for weeks and her body will have been fed on by mice. Macabre joke but it does happen. Who knows where she will end up.
Nothing much else to write. My cycling yesterday was cruelly interrupted by a very heavy rain shower. Boy did I get wet. I can’t remember the last time I got caught in such a downpour. The ridiculous part was that I was doing my little 20 minute loops around Kambah/Wanniassa and was not more than a couple of kilometres from home when it started. I should have stopped at the Drakeford Drive underpass but in true Matt Sumner fashion thought that it wasn’t going to be that heavy and I could make it home without too much trouble. Wrong! Some of my gear is still wet. Of course I wasn’t home for long when the rain stopped and the sun came out. Doesn’t it always happen like that? I should know better.
Hope everyone has a great Easter and Anzac Day and I may write again over the weekend with my observations of the celebrations and commemorations. Bye.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 