Occasional Scribbles

Since TOH’s long illness I’ve had to turn my hand to a lot of things I never expected to have to do.  I’ve become both father and mother to the teens, finance manager, cook, washer upper, cleaner, dog walker (which I would normally do, but just not perhaps all the time, without any help ever).  I’ve had to keep an eye on things like car maintenance and become chatty to the mechanics in the local garage in an effort not be ripped off.  I’ve dicussed prices and works with various tradesmen, kitchen floor fitters, carpet fitters, electricians and plumbers. I have to deal with our grumpy neighbour, when frankly, if I see her bustling up the lane, I am tempted to run and hide.  And I’ve had to do my best to keep the garden maintenance if not up to date, then at least not completely overgrown.  Which leads me to my latest handiwork and the rest of this little story – fence repairs.

Skinny (really fatty) the Whippet, had finally found a way out of what I thought was Fort Knox.  The grumpy neighbour had compained a few months back that Skinny was going into her field.  Not that she minded, (code for she minded very much, actually), she wasn’t doing any harm, she said, but better to fence her in none the same, so the fencing was done.  Thing is, I knew there was a weak spot, by the little gate at the back of the garden that leads across a ditch into the churchyard but being summer it was hidden behind  huge swathes of weeds and cow parsley.  Well it was, until, in a rare moment, TOH, was feeling well enough to sit on the mower and mowed all the weeds down.  Um.

So there I was, in my Mrs Garden Maintenace incarnation, tying to block up the gap that Skinny had gone through.  Amazing what a fatty Whippet can slip through when she is determined.  A while later, quite a while, in fact, (it took a lot of humping of old dead, heavy tree branches and lots of wire to finally plug the hole), I finished the job.  But as I stood back to survey my handiwork, I noticed on the ground just inside the gate, a perfectly round hole.  Doing a bit of detective work and noticing some tiny droppings nearby, I was bent over this hole, straining to see into it, when all of a sudden a little nose, some very bright button eyes and some long whiskers, came into view.  I was so surprised at this.  I stared at him, he stared at me and I wondered  who would be fist to blink –  (I was) and the teeny mouse scampered down the hole again.  I was in two minds whether to call the younger teen, to come and see it but knew that if I did so, A) he probably wouldn’t want to come out and look, and B) the mouse might not peep out again, once he was there, since that usually happens when you particularly want someone else to see something.  So, still bent over, knees stiffening, I kept my eyes on the black hole.  I waited and waited some more and thought I saw it down in the depths somewhere, but then I thought it was my eyes deceiving me as I hadn’t blinked for some time.  After a while I thought I better blink since otherwise, just as I did blink, it might come up and rush back down again before I’d opened my eyes again.  That would be typical also.  But bless his little soul, he came up several more times.  I went to get some of the chicken grain and some cake to tempt him further and sprinkled some around the edge of his hidey-hole, sure enough up he came and this time a tiny paw appeared as he put it up over the edge, ready to pull himself out.  But nerves got the better of him and he disappeared again.

Feeling that I’d had more than my fair share of this special and delightful sight, and frankly, my knees were about to buckle and I knew I was beginning to see things again, I popped a few crumbs down the hole for good measure and left him alone.  Pondering the extraordinary luck of seeing him at all, I decided that he probably came up to see what on earth was going on around his den what with all the noise and activity and fence mending, in what is usually a very peaceful place.  Just need to make sure that the cat doesn’t discover him.