hysteria

I can't get the lyrics out of my head: the boys are back in town, the boys are back in town, the boys are back, the boys are back (Thin Lizzy), except it's the mice that are back or perhaps they never really left, casualties excepted.

Today as I strolled nonchalantly into the kitchen, I was confronted by a dead one. This evening another one was scooting around the room, blatantly unperturbed by my very obvious presence. Does size count for nothing?

And I say to my partner the humane boxes don't entice the mice in, put down more poison as this is the only thing which works, and my son says don't, that's horrible, what's the problem? and I explain that the mice aren't pets and if we want a pet why not just buy some guinea pigs which I've wanted to do for some time now, and sooner rather than later I'm going to enter the kitchen with a trayful of dishes, glimpse movement and drop everything.

And that, regrettably, is the state of play in the wee small hours on a June morning in a Victorian flat on the north side of Edinburgh.


Regrettably yours


Jane