The end of British Summer Time last night theoretically gave us an extra hour in bed, but it didn't feel quite like that. Since the cats and chickens don't know anything about clocks they expect their breakfast and to be let out at the same time as usual, and while the morning seemed long (handy for last night's washing up) I knew that was a mere illusion, and that the afternoon before it got dark would be correspondingly short.
By mid-morning (or late morning, depending on whether you are going by clock time or biological time) I had psyched myself up to go out and do some work in the garden, but once I'd changed into my gardening clothes it had started raining. By the time I'd done some necessary watering in the greenhouse and conservatory, and checked the rat bait in the pot shed, my nose was running and my ears starting to pop again, and I gathered that trying to dodge the showers to spend the rest of the day tending a wet garden in an ambient temperature of five degrees would probably not be a good idea. So I went back inside and changed out of the gardening clothes.
In our unspoken division of labour I am in charge of pest control, keeping an eye out for infestations of things that crawl or sting, deciding on the appropriate means of deterrence or destruction if required (I persuaded the SA that the hornets in the end of the house could remain until the cold weather kills them, then we'll block up the hole), and applying them, or calling in professionals. It started with wasps' nests, which was fair enough since I am used to working in a bee suit and relatively calm in the presence of large numbers of stinging insects. By extension I became Chief Rodent Officer as well. That probably makes sense, since I spend more time in the garden and am the one who feeds and mucks out the chickens, so am more likely to spot when something undesirable has moved in.
I don't like poisoning rats, and worry about the research that shows that the majority of barn owl fatalities tested have traces of rodenticide in their bodies. But we can't have rats living under the shed or chicken house. I tried buying a trap, but never caught a single rat and almost removed my fingers a couple of times trying to set it. Rat traps are vicious contraptions. If I did catch a rat I wouldn't know what to do with it, since I have no means of shooting it and it is both cruel and illegal to drown trapped animals. It seems cruel to poison them, but we have to do something.
The quid pro quo for my doing the fell deed when it comes to wasps and rats is that the Systems Administrator is in charge of removing all bodies, mainly mice and voles that the cats bring in. I am very squeamish, and insisted long ago that anybody as keen on military history as the SA must be able to cope with entrails.
The Systems Administrator had already lit a fire in the stove in the study when I went back inside. Yesterday's supper party in the upstairs sitting room was our swan song for a while, except when we have guests, and maybe on Saturday nights when we begin to develop cabin fever. The sitting room is too big and too difficult to heat, being split level, open plan and effectively two stories high. In winter we retreat to the study, a normal sized, normal shaped room with a door you can shut to keep the heat of the stove in.
The cold has made the cats hungry. Lunchtime is complicated. The big tabby gets his Special Lunch, a pouch of Sheba, because he easily loses weight to the point of skinniness. He knows to come and eat his lunch in the corner of the kitchen. Indeed, nowadays he refuses to eat normal tinned food at lunchtime, and sits in the kitchen dribbling and looking gaunt and pathetic until he gets his helping of expensive premium product. Our Ginger is still too fat, and doesn't need Special Lunch, but it seems unkind not to give him anything when he knows the other cat is getting Sheba, which he likes, so he gets a few Thomas Treats in the hall to distract him while the big tabby is having lunch. The black cat has got a touch skinny, with old age, the cold weather and his bad leg, and needs lunch as well, but he won't eat if locked in the kitchen, so has to have his lunch in his usual place in the hall while the big tabby is locked in the study to stop him from snaffling the black cat's lunch as seconds. The short fat indignant tabby stayed out of the proceedings today, because she accidentally spent most of the day locked in the laundry. She likes it in there, because it is dark and warm, and went in on purpose and refused to come out when I asked her nicely. So I shut the door, and then forgot she was in there. I'm sure that if she'd wanted to come out she could bust the door open, or scream for help.
Let us hope that the rats do indeed die underground, as promised by Rentokil, and don't go tottering around in a weakened state looking like easy prey.
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