On Saturday the casserole for that evening's meal was in the oven and everything else was under control so I thought that I could treat myself to a bit of blogging. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop when I heard a rustling noise. The noise appeared to be coming from the lobby between the kitchen and the utility room. This is a small square room that the kitchen door opens onto, as does the utility room door and the back door opens off it. I went to investigate. In the dark I saw something move amongst the rubbish, that I had earlier decided it was too cold to put in the dustbin. Quick as a flash I was upstairs to my husband. He was quickly downstairs and into the kitchen. We both stood there listening. Yes, there was definitely something happening in the lobby. My husband opened the kitchen door but couldn't see what was making the noise, so opened the utility room door and as he did, a small dark brown creature scuttled into the utility room. Now we had lost it as the utility room is quite big. We moved things around but it had gone to ground and was silent. I think that it was probably a mouse, but the question is how had it got in? It was three and a half hours since the back door had been opened. Surely, if a mouse had been in the lobby for that length of time we would have heard it sooner.
We have not heard or seen it since, so either it has found its way out or is still in the utility room. Since this incident I have insisted that we keep all the doors, both internal and external, shut at all times to try to prevent the mouse getting into the house. It is amazing the number of doors that we have in the downstairs of the cottage. Each room has at least two doors. It is a bit like a rabbit warren.
Later in the evening I remembered the windfall cooking apples that I had left on the utility room floor. Recently I had noticed that some of them looked as if they were being eaten but as I could not think what could be eating them, I had assumed, that as they were now old and going rotten, that they were self decomposing. I realised that the mouse had probably been in and out for a few weeks helping itself to our unwanted apples. The apples have now been thrown away and we are planning on having the utility room refitted.
Then last night just as I was about to drift off to sleep I was aroused by some animal doing a clog dance in the loft. It wasn't a mouse. It made too much noise. Two minutes of Strictly Come Dancing in the loft and I was wide awake for the next three hours! We need to have some repair work done to the barge boards, soffits and gutters and hopefully any holes into the roof will be filled in.