What, You Don't Sleep With A Broom Next To Your Bed?

Move over urban legend... rural necessity has arrived!

There are many ways to catch a monkey, and of course there are many ways to sleep at night. Before your mind does a bit of a hop, skip and jump into those shady grey areas, let me clarify: One can sleep comfortably, alone, not alone and sleep through the night.

Of course, sleeping through the night is not always granted to me as my mind seems to think it's time to get up, even if it is one in the morning. Fair enough, one learns to adjust.

Somehow, life seems to be determined for Bob and I to embrace the rural lifestyle with both hands. Our problem with a few mice having an outing in our home is known even beyond this blog...the other day I met our local " cat woman " ( no, not Michelle P, but the lady who looks after stray cats... ) and merely hinted that we were interested in having a little kitten.

" Oh, that's right. I have heard you had a mouse problem! "

clearly the cat's out of the bag!!!

Mice having a field day in your home seems typical for a rural setting and we are sorting that problem by getting a little kitten. In fact, Bob and I are already discussing the possible character traits of said kitten and hopefully it is a well behaved one.

The last few days, we have been getting a few hints from above. Not the celestial type, but the ceiling type. Thankfully, both of us knew that what we heard wasn't ghostly but rather ghastly. Something is crawling around on top of our ceiling and no, it isn't our darling feral cat Tigger. Although, in an effort of tough love, Bob and I are discussing whether we should not feed her a day or two.

Calm down, it isn't an act of feline torture, but let's not forget that an outside cat should control her fiefdom...mice in the roof should be an appetizer for her and if it is a rat, then that clearly is the main course. At the moment she is so lazy and moves slower due to her middle age spread.

At first it was merely a bit of a scratch here and a running there above our heads. Definitely the calm before the storm. Our little resident ( mouse, rat or marten ) has gone crazy. It will spend at least 30 minutes scratching like mad right above us in the ceiling. The most awful sound and I kind of expect our ceiling to develop a hole soon.

Bob gets so irate, that instead of watching Tatort he is busy creating his own. Last night he spent a long time knocking the broom handle on our ceiling along with a string of choice words. In a strange way it was rather funny. There was Bob swearing and using the broom for anything but sweeping the floor and I got the distinct feeling that whatever was up in our ceiling, took this knocking as a sort of game.

The more Bob knocked the more this little bugger scratched around. Eventually, I made Bob realize the futility of this game and casually mentioned that he would have to climb up there during daylight hours to see. Gosh, he was so irate that the thought of getting the better of this twit in our ceiling made him agree to an excursion up above ....which means that yours truly needn't go up into a dusty ceiling.

Biggi