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Cat Flap Charlie, the Mouse and the Fox 19 July 2006
Mrs Monk went off to school and left me with another mouse-in-the-house dilemma. Cat Flap Charlie was unduly attentive to a large pile of Mrs Monk’s shoes under the stairs, and that usually meant that he had caught a mouse, brought it into the house, and released it for cat and mouse horse-play.
This weeks Big Brother on TV had a rat in the house and that separated the house-mates into two camps: The Welsh camp who were motivated to kill the rodent, and the others who were passionate committed defenders of the rat, and indeed also shed tears for the rat. In due course Big Brother announced that the Rat was dealt with compassionately. Accordingly the Monks have tools on hand for the humane capture of mice so that they may be released into the wild suburbia, to fight another day.
This was a two person operation to capture the mouse and I waited until our friend Angie arrived, when I alerted her to the task in hand, namely, the capture of small field mouse in old shoe, possibly.
Charlie was placed in the living room and the door was closed. He was not pleased
Angie helped me remove the pile of shoes one shoe at a time, while I stood by with a cardboard tube into which the mouse would be invited to escape: it had worked before. After fifty shoes had been carefully removed, our tiny friend had nowhere else to hide. He cowered and shivered. I advanced with the cardboard tube, mouse looked both ways, but then bolted between my legs across the hall and under the closed door and into the living room, where Charlie was waiting for him.
“Oh No,” said Angie. “Oh No,” said me.
I opened the Living Room door and Charlie had the mouse in his mouth. I made him drop the mouse, and the mouse escaped with a limp. In due course Angie and I were able to recapture him in the designated mouse-catching cardboard tube. The will to live appeared to have drained from the mouse, but I was delighted to see him scuttle off into the front garden, when I set him free.
Angie and I had a drink and then returned to work. I sat down and tapped on my keyboard and turned on the radio.
We are quite used to stray cats entering the house through Cat Flap Charlie’s cat flap, in order to steal his food from his bowl in the kitchen, but within 30 minutes after the mouse episode I was face to face with a Fox who had made his way through the Kitchen and Hallway into the Living Room where I was tapping on my keyboard.
This creature was apparently unfazed by my music, and by Angies Dyson. He eyeballed me and I eyeballed him before he ran off.
. Shoestring Chronicle
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