Mice and Christmas Cake

December 2015  Times of TW

Of Mice and Christmas Cake

By Kent Barker

It all started because of the mice.  Well, actually, it all started because of the Christmas cake. 

Let me explain.  My son is home from Uni.  It being a couple of months since he’s been in the house, he’s forgotten where anything goes. [Actually I’m none too sure he knew where anything went before he left - he never seemed able to locate the dish-washer, judging by the pile of dirty plates left on the side.] But now he’s certainly unable to locate the cake tin after being asked to tidy away before going to bed.

Next morning I find the unprotected cake in the larder. When he finally emerges for breakfast just as the rest of us are preparing lunch I mention that this was not a particularly good home for unwrapped food. Why not, he asks?  Because of the mice.

Now, if you are lucky [or some might say unlucky] enough to live deep in the country in a medieval house which is really only one evolutionary step removed from a barn, mice are a constant problem.  In fact wildlife generally seem to proliferate just as readily inside the house as outside. Bats, for instance, have all but taken over the attic. Spiders scuttle hither and thither and provide constant work for an army of cleaners – or would if I had an army of cleaners to call upon. Moths seem greatly to prefer to breed indoors rather than out.  And countless generations of mice have made my home theirs without so much as a by-your-leave or the most modest contribution towards the council tax bill.

Generally I don’t much mind mice. Though I would prefer not to see them running out from behind the sofa half way through a late night film. The trouble is the damage they cause.  In a rather rare bout of cleaning I recently removed the cushions on the sofa to vacuum up the dog fleas [another species that’s taken up residence]. Underneath I found that one particularly determined rodent had started to eat upwards through the foam rubber.  Even the dog might have been a bit surprised to find a sniffling snout and a set of whiskers emerging from the adjacent seat in the middle of the night.

Over the years I’ve tried most methods of removal, from traps to poison, and I generally hate myself for it.  I’ve even resorted those humane traps which tempt the mouse in before the door closes automatically behind it. But usually they seem perfectly capable of taking the cheese and disappearing without getting caught.  So you feel all you’re doing is providing free board along with the lodging.  Ultimately I decided on the opposite tack.  Starve them out.  ALL food is now kept in the fridge or in mouse-proof containers.  Generally this is quite effective and the “Mus musculus” population seems to have been reduced to acceptable levels.  Which is why I offered a gentle admonition to my boy for unwittingly tempting them back with the Christmas cake.

“Naw,” he said.  “What you need is a cat.  And, as luck would have it, a mate of mine has a load of kittens he needs to get rid of.  I’ll get you one for Christmas.”

I was, truth be told, ever so slightly underwhelmed with the generosity of this offer, thinking of the vets bills and pet food costs that would fall upon me during the feline’s life.  “Cumon,” he continued, “You know you’d love a sweet little kitten.  I’ll give my mate a call.”

When I’d declined firmly enough for him to understand - “Under no circumstances whatsoever are you to call your ‘mate’ or get a kitten off him or bring it here, because if you do I’ll smash up your Christmas presents, curtail your allowance and disinherit you…” he asked, not unreasonably what I had against cats.

Absolutely nothing, I told him. I’ve had several in my time, including a pair named Trotsky and Lenin [which made calling for them to come in at night in the somewhat conservative suburb we inhabited at the time something of an ordeal].  But, I said, cats kill birds, and I’ve only just put up the bird table for the winter and I’m enjoying watching the robins eating from it, and I’m hoping to attract the green woodpecker that I’ve seen at the end of the garden.  “What about the dog?” he asked. The only birds the dog chases are pheasants in the woods, I told him, and that’s probably a good thing because generally they are so fat and lazy they can hardly get off the ground.  So actually Myrtle and I are doing them a favour in helping them to fly, which might, just might, enable them to evade the guns.  But that’s another story.