CASUALTIES OF WAR

One of the more unfortunate casualties of the recent incursion into our home of our tiny interloper and our subsequent declaration of war against the little blighter, and after which we did the - admittedly long, long overdue - de-clutter and chucking out of the rubbish and "contaminated" stuff, was my mother's last birthday card to me, written in a very shaky hand during the summer of 2013, in which she took a moment to thank me for everything I'd done (Which is, incidentally, to my eyes at least, not very much at all, but there you are).

In the normal, everyday world, of course, this sort of thing would have been chucked out long ago, but with my tendency to over-sentimentalise things and just pile them up to be dealt with later, a dusty pile of old birthday cards can occasionally gain an undue importance in the great scheme of things as they sit there, unremembered and not bing thought about until long after they ought to.

After all, these things are just "stuff" after all, and the real thought mattered when it mattered and it's the memories that really count, don't you think, and not the bits and pieces surrounding them…?

Of course, it was those very bits and pieces that made me think about it that afternoon, of course, and the wrenching sense of guilt as that particular card joined all the others in the black bin bag will stay with me a while, I suspect, along with my wonder that our councils insist upon us using such bags even though they rip and tear for the simplest of reasons.

I looked at the pile of bags that our suddenly very necessary clear out had created and wondered whether the bin men would take any or all of them, given that we might have exceeded our fortnightly "quota"…? I had, of course, miscalculated which collection week it was the previous week and accumulated more outside already than were strictly necessary, but our post-apocalyptic cleansing seemed to have created some kind of a mountain of the blessed things. I suspected that I might just be making a trip to the tip the following weekend when I ought really to be attacking phase two of that very same clear out.

The "mum" thing was a very poignant moment, however, and, along with some of the other "precious things" that had to be discarded as "casualties" our our own private little war, it did serve to remind me that having stuff brings with it the responsibility of looking after that stuff, otherwise things like this will continue to happen. I already suspect that my precious collection of old comics that languish in an as-yet unreachable dark corner of the attic will no doubt already be lost to the unseen marauders, which will cut me to the very quick given that some of that was being "sort of" counted upon for my retirement fund.

Meanwhile, I've noticed that, instead of it getting easier, it's felt far, far tougher this Christmas than last to be completely without parents as I now am. Somehow, I suppose, I'd rather expected last Christmas to be tough, and so it proved less tough than I imagined it would be, but with time being allegedly such a great healer, and this being another year on, I think that I had come to believe that it would be a breeze, so, rather naturally, it turns out not to be.

This year, however, I suddenly find myself looking around for my little rituals and routines and finding that they're simply not there and, whilst I was never the biggest fan of the season, I'm finding that I really am starting to miss all of those daft little annoyances which both got in the way of and contributed to yet another disappointing Festive Season for me.

Hang on to your memories, my friends, because sometimes they're all that you're left with.

S.U.R.A. II

T'was three weeks before Christmas,
And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
Except for...

Last Saturday didn't start particularly well for our interloper, or at least one of our interlopers, if we get really unlucky.

Basically, and not to elaborate too much for anyone just contemplating their breakfast, the Snap Trap I put down did it's job, ("AutumnWatch fans, look away now...), and the creature was found bereft of life and needing disposing of, which is not a job for the squeamish, I can tell you.

The Beloved did it... I held the (double) bags open to receive the body.

Somehow it looked simultaneously both more and less harmless in this state, and, whilst we felt terribly guilty and bringing it to this end, we knew that we'd given it the humane trap option (which it had declined), and put enough deterrents down to persuade it to move out, but it had stuck around and, to be frank, knowing its fate is a lot better than merely wondering whether it's gone.

Anyway, after that start, for us the rest of the weekend was spent in a cleaning and de-cluttering frenzy as we set about scrubbing down anywhere where we thought that its grubby little paws might have touched whilst simultaneously being on the alert for any manifestations from any of its cousins and putting that ghastly expanding foam into anywhere we thought might have been an access point.

We hope they don't find that stuff to be tasty at all, although I suspect that it's lethal, given that I spent much of the weekend masked and gloved like I was in an episode of "The X-Files".

(Kids - "The X-Files" was a long-ago TV series about investigating paranormal activity, UFOs and such, and there were often chaps in Haz-Med suits about dealing with their fictional interlopers. It was pretty good, at least for the first few years, and then - as you'll find with most things as you get older - then got a little disappointing and rather outstayed its welcome.)

Honestly, talk about over-reacting, but I suspect that there are medical professionals dealing with those awful outbreaks of disease in Africa who are less well protected than we were last weekend. (Bet I still manage to come down with something lurgy-like, though...)

Some discoveries were alarming, to say the least.

Inside the fireplace we thought we'd found one of its hidey-holes, and we duly swept it all up, despite most of it being debris that had cascaded down the chimney for what is very probably several years now.

The worst though was when we started moving the cookery books from the lower shelf in the alcove and discovered just where it had hoarded all of the grain it had removed from that microwaveable grain hot water bottle that it had emptied.

To be honest, you do have to admire the tenacity of the wee timorous beastie if it shifted that much of the stuff a mouthful at a time, whilst simultaneously being utterly appalled by the amount of time that it must have had to do it without us even noticing, and also, you really can't help wondering whether it did it alone...

Meanwhile, it had also, perhaps ironically, nibbled at several of the cookbooks, whilst taking a particular shine to Nigella, which should probably tell us all something significant, I suppose, especially as all nibbled books went straight into the bin bags with little in the way of regret - even though, if the circumstances were different, they'd still be much-treasured volumes I'm sure.

Sadly, after a weekend filling more bin bags than the bin men will reasonably remove, I wish that I could say that there haven't, as yet, been any more sightings, but we remain on jittery alert, waiting for this saga of horror to continue, and finding droppings in unlikely places to suggest that it's far from being over...

There are less than two weeks to go until Christmas, and still we can't even begin to give any thought towards that...

S.U.R.A.

I'd had my suspicions for a while, of course. There'd been those troubling things that resembled nibble marks on the apple that I'd unwisely left overnight in my lunch coolbag, along with the similarly shaped hole in the uneaten brunch bar packaging, and that weirdly stale pack of crisps, but I didn't know for sure until I was on the phone to an old friend who had unwittingly interrupted "2001: A Space Odyssey" and saw something flit across the floor between the TV stand and the large storage box in the centre of the room.

Was it, perhaps (I hoped) just a very large spider...? Now, when that's the option that you're hoping for, then you really know that you've got a problem.

But really, I already knew... and, whilst the rest of the telephone conversation passed by in a bit of a blur, and the film was destined to remain unwatched beyond the imminent unnecessary repair of the AD35 Unit, my first priority was to explain my suspicions to my Beloved and wait for the inevitable fallout.

"Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam… I S.U.R.A…"

Then, with as much calmness and rationality as we could muster (which wasn't much...) we started moving the furniture and the clutter around and discovered yet more evidence all but confirming those suspicions, as the contents of one of those microwaveable grain based heat packs was scattered around in various parts of the room.

We beat a hasty retreat, and then spent a sleepless night thinking that they were everywhere. It's amazing, really, how something so very tiny can assume such vast proportions in the mind. There might, hopefully, only be one of the creatures about, but in my head, the entire house is now just like that scene set in the sewers in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", every cupboard door being opened resembles the roof panel being lifted in "Aliens", and when I get downstairs in the morning, I expect to have them collapse on top of me like a mountain of Tribbles when I open the door.

Even opening up a packet of biscuits makes me think of "Fawlty Towers" (...and you KNOW which episode I mean...!), every shadow, every noise, every movement noticed out of the corner of my eye makes me think that there might be something unexpectedly about to leap out at me, and it is, quite frankly, disturbing to think that I can be so easily disconcerted to this degree.

The next day we called in at the DIY store and bought what we hoped were some "humane" options, because we're nothing if not wet liberals until you scratch our surfaces, and so, later on that evening, the little trapdoor boxes were set out, and the sonic devices plugged into the sockets, and, on the advice of several of the Beloved's colleagues (a surprising number of whom had had similar experiences), various other techniques were applied so that the house currently positively reeks of peppermint oil, which is, incidentally, far preferable to the slight smell of damp straw that my subconscious is now conjuring up everywhere.

We didn't get an actual sighting for another 24 hours, when a documentary we were watching about alien infiltration in science fiction got interrupted by my Beloved spotting a movement across the fireplace towards the bookshelves.

Getting myself suitably gloved up, I tentatively ventured into the corner, shifting all manner of furniture and television equipment in order to do so, and, moving book after book, I finally came face-to-face with the beastie myself, so that I can now confidently identify it as being of the Long-tailed Field persuasion.

I thought that I had it trapped, slamming book after book towards the back of the shelf to restrict its area of operations, but, sadly, when I removed the final volumes, this tiny magician had vanished, and there was nothing to be found other than the vast hole in the masonry from when the workmen fitting the boiler before last had re-routed the gas main.

That we immediately covered with as many bits of stone and rock as we could easily lay our hands upon, with plans already in hand to return to the DIY store and immure the lot with whatever ready-mix concrete-y stuff and massively toxic expanding foam I could get my hands on and hopefully easily handle, then we vacuumed and swept up whatever debris we could and pretty much abandoned the living room once again.

I then, of course, freaked myself out totally by going onto the internet and reading about the horrors and diseases associated with this sort of situation, before making it worse by reading about their breeding habits. I'm now so very freaked out by this, in fact, that for a week I've hardly slept and barely eaten, and, despite the fact that it does appear to be restricted to one room, I'm convinced that the little devils are scurrying about everywhere and all of the time.

There's also the massive sense of shame that we've allowed our lives to come to this, which is going to be very difficult to shake off...

I'm even prepared to freeze a little by not turning up the thermostat despite the cold snap, thinking that it might pack up and go off in search of somewhere far cosier.

Then, everything went quiet, and we had no sightings for about four days, possibly because we were heading to bed and hiding under the duvet at about seven o'clock in the evening due to abject terror. We started to relax a little, thinking maybe that shutting off that hole had driven it elsewhere and it wasn't until we got home later on Friday evening, having finally managed to get ourselves to the DIY store and get the equipment we needed for a weekend of cleaning, sealing and reclaiming our home from the intruder, that we saw it again.

And so, knowing that this way lies madness or, at the very least, a phobia or three, we've decided that it's time for us to stop playing Mr and Miss Nice Guy and get seriously mechanical and old school on its furry little backside, despite the fact that we might have to rescind our "AutumnWatch" credentials.

Of course, you realise, this means war...

SUDDENLY SCAFFOLDING

I came home midweek to find that, whilst it wasn’t entirely unexpected that it would eventually be, the front of the house had, very suddenly and without warning, been clad in scaffolding which persuaded me that perhaps some kind of a start had been made on our tiny bit of building work.

I’m not entirely sure, however, because I’ve not actually seen the place in daylight since, so it’s really hard to tell, what with all of the angles and darkness and all, whether the tree that was growing out of the roof is still there, or whether I just have a fancy sculpture standing next to the front of my home that seems designed merely to “bother” the neighbours as they pass along.

It’s a bit odd really. Having given the okay for the work to proceed, we still kind of expected to actually hear something before everything got started so that we might be able to knock on a few doors and what have you in order to let people know what was about to be going on, but no…

Instead, it just suddenly appeared as if the “scaffolding pixies” had dropped by to leave us a gift, and there it remains lurking next to the front of the house in anticipation of “something” although it doesn’t quite give the impression that anyone knows quite what the “something” is as yet.

I do, however, suspect that it’s going to be something expensive…

Still, it’s not as if anyone can really complain (although I’m sure they might), after all there’s still more than enough room for them all to get by just as long as they’re not trying to deliver a grand piano or something. (Pauses as he spots the van from the grand piano company pulling up outside…)

I was a little concerned that one of the bracing struts did seem to have been set in next door’s garden, and I did try knocking on her door to explain just as soon as we got home and saw this steel spider’s web had been erected, but she appeared to be out that evening and I haven’t seen any sign of her since.

I did, of course, mention to her that we “might be having a little work done” when she tracked me down a few weeks ago to tell me that she would be “having a little work done” to her own house a few weeks ago, so it’ll probably be all right… (Pauses to ponder upon the possibility that ALL of the houses in the row are crumbling…)

Anyway, I suppose the rational, reasonable argument goes something along the lines of it being safer to have the scaffolding set up and struggle through a little bit of inconvenience for a couple of weeks rather than have a bloody great lump of stone fall off the house and squash someone, although, on occasions in the past, “rational” and “reasonable” have not been the first words that sprang to mind with certain people in the neighbourhood.

Happily, our immediate neighbours are just about as perfect a you could hope for and, if the weather doesn’t get too grim, and the discoveries that are made whenever somebody does climb that scaffolding tower to investigate aren’t too horrendous, perhaps the imposition won’t be too long-lasting…?

Hopefully…

Fingers crossed, eh…?

Otherwise I might need some scaffolding to hold me up…