We HAD a Mouse!

I wrote in a previous blog how our house had become a time-share with a very clever little mouse/mice. This/these little critters were far too clever for me and evaded every attempt I made at trying to catch them humanely. I said at the time they would have been far better to humour me and walk into one of my very expensive but totally useless traps, then shrug their little shoulders saying,"What are we like?” I would have then rehoused them in a new suitable abode, away from my house and my psychotic wife. But no, they persisted in humiliating me by sneering at my feeble attempts to catch them. I know what the wily coyote felt like now, when faced with the road runner!

The problem for them was that it was inevitable that sooner or later my wife would take over the rehousing of the poor little creatures. My wife is usually a quiet, gentle person who cares for people both professionally and privately. The problem is she becomes as tolerant as a Nazi in a ghetto when it comes to what she regards as vermin. She bought out the local store's entire stock of poison. Why no-one questioned why she needed so much poison is beyond me! I have employed a food taster, just in case she has taken out a huge insurance policy on me without me knowing. 

Every cupboard trap walkway was baited with lumps of poison which for some reason was blue. They/it not only ate the poison she put out, but loved it so much they ate through the box it came in and ate what was inside it. This must have been the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the rodent world! But as the saying goes, 'I think it bit off more than it could chew' we haven't seen it or any sign of it of late. But this hasn't stopped my wife from buying more poison and laying it down. I think she's expecting a muscular mouse turning up and in an Austrian accent saying, “You killed my Farter!” All Austrians have Mutters and Farters! Then she thinks the mouse will whip out its nano-Uzi and spray us with little tiny bullets.

I do feel bad about not being able to rehouse the little critters. It's strange, isn't it, that I'm supposed to be the big mean fighter type and my wife is the meek and mild one, but we swap roles when it comes to things like this. We get a lot of foxes in our garden I love them, but my wife throws water over them because they mess up the bins. She needs order, where I'm not keen. She does love the birds in the garden though, and has even bought a bird table but with the amount of poison she has bought of late I'm not so sure if she's not trying to get rid of all the wildlife in the wood where we live.

She would happily annihilate all moths from the face of the Earth, having a phobia about them, and the same goes for spiders. She reacts to spiders they way I would react to finding a fully-grown tiger in the bathroom! I would forgive anyone for screaming uncontrollably and running off like a gazelle on acid when faced with a fully-grown tiger, but I don't see why you would do this when confronted with an ickle itsy bitsy spider!

So, if you don't read anymore blogs from me in the future, you'll know that the poison wasn't all for the mouse. I have started to look for anything blue in my food! Here's my prayer for the mice.

Please be safe, oh little mouse

Stay away, don't come to my house!

And if you value your precious life,

Don't leave any droppings and piss off my wife!

And while you scurry, what ever you do,

Stay away from our cupboards and anything blue!

Amen!

Homicidal Butterflies

I have just been listening to the news of the stupid women who have taken their young, innocent children out to a war zone because of their retarded belief system.

Have these women not seen the images of people, people who have the same religious beliefs as them, clinging to the side of boats with their children in their arms in a desperate attempt to escape the very people they are wanting to join? Have they not read about the brutality of these people that they are so keen to help? Have they not seen the random murders and beheading of innocent people that these people carry out with an air of matter of fact? Do they really want their young children to grow and pupate into homicidal butterflies?

These women, like lots of other disaffected youths, have no idea what they are really about to join. They hold an ideology that is coloured by puppet masters, they hate what has given them the freedom to hold such juvenile beliefs. When they reach Syria and join up with Isis, the fantasy will be squashed once and for all and they will be stuck with people who are totally alien to them and their beliefs. They have been brought up in Britain which has offered them a certain freedom. They have been educated and have always had a social safety net to fall back on. These are the very things that Their forbears left their original countries for in the first place. I know this, because I, too, am from a family of immigrants: we left our country to to come here to Britain to gain a better life. These stupid women have now taken their children, the very people they should be striving to educate and keep safe and free from harm, to a place of great danger. They will not receive an education or any freedom to think and speak without dire consequences. They will encounter fear, violence and hunger. What reason could a rational human being have to wish these things upon their children?!

These stupid women themselves are also in great danger. Some will be married off to Isis murderers if they are lucky. Because lots of these morons will see them as western women and no more than as they say, 'whores', they will be more likely than not raped. This is not me being a western bigoted Christian, I dislike all religions. I view them all as a disease of the mind, that stops people from thinking and behaving rationally. Religious people who hold moderate views and take issue with my last sentence, tell me when was the last time you prayed to an invisible being that has never given you reason to believe it exists? I am saying all these things after reading about the subject at some length and listening to reports not only from the western press but also from local people who are stuck in the conflict. In other words I have done what these stupid women should have done before risking the lives of themselves, but more importantly, their children. You only have to look at the actions of Isis to know that you will not be living amongst rational people.

Also this week another little homicidal butterfly has emerged and shot nine people in America. This little caterpillar was a fed a diet of hatred. This time it wasn't religious (but no doubt he will turn out to be a right-wing Christian) but because he doesn't like the colour of peoples skins! I find this quite difficult to believe in this day and age that hatred can still stem from the colour of skin. I hate Isis because of their political, social and intellectual ideologies, not because they have a religion. I hate fascists for the same reason ( Isis, I suppose, are ultra-fascists) I cannot understand how you can dislike a person because of the colour of their skin? I dislike lots of black people and I dislike lots of white people but this has nothing to do with the colour of their skin, it's about their ideology and the way they treat others.

To kill innocent people who have done nothing wrong, but held out their hands in friendship to you, is as low as the human psyche can get. Surely this young man who has committed the crime has deep seated mental health issues, there can be no other reason for him to commit such a barbaric act. My heart goes out to the family of the victims, but don't forgive him, let him rot in gaol. If he thinks he's superior because of the colour of his skin there is no place for him in society.

Anger and a lack of identity are all part and parcel of growing up, but most of us wear clothes that our parents hate and go on marches and demonstrations to vent our anger when we are young! We don't behead people or shoot people. Most people strive to fit in (although I find fitting in is quite overrated) but to force your children to face grave danger because you wish for something is nothing more than criminal!

So the next time you see a surly youth with a stud through their lip and hair the colour of a rainbow, shouting that they hate the system, take time to chat to them, Butterflies are a thing of beauty, a thing to emerge and fly away and start a new episode in life, they shouldn't be made to kill!

Invasion Of The Buddy Snatchers!

Age is a funny thing. Well, it's funny if you have a warped sense of humour! The ageing process is something that you can easily see in others, but not in yourself.

I have, of late, met quite a few people from my dim and distant past, with quite a few surprises. Even while having a chat with a close friend the other day, I was quite surprised to hear just how age is catching up with him. You see, when you are young you are invincible, and illness is something that other people have. You have the ability to abuse your body, only for it to bounce back the next day looking for yet more abuse. When you get older, your body starts to remind you just what an abusive master you were. Bits that had worked perfectly without any concern suddenly decide that they no longer want anything to do with you and stop working. While other body parts such as hairs migrate from the top of your head to your ears and nostrils.

I have to own up to being quite abusive to my body in the past, but I have always exercised and taken time to be nice to it from time to time, where some of my friends liked to make the donkey work! The friend I mentioned earlier has had a couple of heart attacks and has now been forced to change his life style, but it has still taken its toll on him. In the past both he and I have spent not only whole evenings but whole days and nights drinking and smoking and eating crap food while doing stupid stunts that put us in the local accident and emergency departments. He now finds it hard to walk more than a few hundred yards.

I have to admit that I like breasts, busters, boobies, norkes what ever you want to call them. I like the way they hang, the feel of them and the whole aesthetics of them, but I don't want them on me! I like them on women, that way I can really appreciate them. The friend I have just spoken about seems to have developed a pair of double 'D' cups that any glamour model would be proud of. I'm beginning to think I have got off quite lightly. My eyesight is getting a bit dodgy and my hair has turned white and is starting to thin at the front but I'm still boob-free and, as yet, no illnesses.

I saw a woman in the local supermarket the other week, she came over to me for a chat. I had no idea just who this woman was, but I never do know who people are, I meet so many. She started to chat about things and once the "how are you?" and "it's been nasty weather" side of the British greetings were finished, she started to talk about school days. This always worries me because I remember very few people from my school days, mainly because my school days were spent down by a local river swimming and causing problems for others. 

I started the usual scan in my head of possibilities of who she could be. She was small and fat her hair was thinning and grey. She seemed to have had more than her fair share of visits from the tooth fairy. I think I counted two teeth bobbing about in her cavernous mouth. Her flesh had the quality of autumn leaves before the rain, veined , wrinkled and dry, with a hint of yellow. It was safe to say she didn't moisturise. As she spoke, I was at a total loss to just who she could be until she told me the sad news about another person that I was at school with who had died recently. I wasn't a friend as such of this man but I did know him to say "hello" to. She then added just what a shock it was to her when she heard of his passing, with her going out with him through out her school years! I nearly choked when she said this. 

The man she spoke about was the really cool lad at school, he was the lad that all the girls fancied and the boys hated. He was a few years older than me, so I didn't really know much about him except his girlfriend was regarded by all the lads in the school as the most beautiful girl in the school. She was small, and slim, with long blonde hair. She was incredibly attractive and had the best set of boobies a young man could gaze upon in his early years. This vision of beauty now stood in front of me looking like an escapee from Macbeth! What in the name of google had happened to her in the years since leaving school? Just what the fuck had she been up to? Actually the amount of grandchildren she had snapping around her ankles was probably a clue. She was quite pleasant company, and even said just how well I looked. Obviously I repaid the compliment, so we were both a couple of lying bastards.

But the saddest of all things about ageing is something I encountered a couple of days ago and is something I can't get out of my mind, it has upset me so much.

When I first left school, legally, many years ago and got my first job, I worked with a man who was in his mid 'forties. He was a short heavily built man with an enormous amount of strength. He would smoke a brand of cigarettes known as Capstan Full Strength. These were also known as "coffin nails" because of how strong they were. This man had lots of charm, and a wit that could slice paper, it was so sharp. His intellect was that of someone who was surely in the wrong place of work. He, like a lot of people, was a victim of his birth, and found it hard to break free from the shackles of poverty. But I loved this man's company. He always told me to get out of the the job I was in and go explore the world, which I did. I had met him a few times since over the years. Once we met at a mutual friend's party, which ended in one of those spontaneous nights where you drink, laugh and feel happy with the world.

The other day I met him in the town centre. He was walking with a stick, and his body shook as he tried to walk. His once powerful body had dwindled to a fraction of its old self. His hair had long gone and he held on to to the arm of his wife, the woman he was devoted to for sixty years. To be honest it was his wife that I recognised, as he looked so different. I went over to say my hellos and was shocked by just how much he had deteriorated. He looked through me, not acknowledging that I was there. There was no sign of the rapier wit or the sparkle of the eye, just an old empty shell standing before me. His wife told me that he had suffered from Alzheimer's for quite a while now, and it had robbed her of the man she loved. He was now living in a care home and she visited him each day to take him out and to be with him. I tried to talk to him, but he didn't know who I was. I said my goodbyes to her and gave him a hug which he didn't appreciate, then walked away. I had to go back to my car, as tears were rolling down my face at this cruel twist of life.

So cherish your true friends, keep them close, live life to the full and when the reaper calls I hope you still have all of what you came into the world with!

The Monsters Under Your Bed!

There comes a time in the life of every member of my family when they have to do something very important. This important deed is something that will stay with us for the rest of our lives, and we will pass on to our children. We have to go and say hello to the fairies!

This week, when little Harleigh came to stay, we decided that we would go into the woods where we live and introduce our newest member of the Walsh clan to the little people of the woods. I have to stress that the Walsh fairies have always been woodland fairies. Not to be mistaken for water nymphs, leprechauns, boggits or imps. They are good fairies, who protect the woodlands and young humans from anything bad.

Because Harleigh is not yet three years old, we had to go during the day to look for the fairies, and everyone knows that all the little people sleep during the day, so we had little chance of seeing one up close. But we did look down some fairy trees which have large holes at the base to let the small people in to sleep. Both little Harleigh and myself were convinced that we saw a little person wrapped in a leaf blanket asleep in the tree, so we whispered our hello and moved on.

I explained to Harleigh as we walked through the wood that when she was born a little light appeared in a leaf boat on the sea of dreams. Then the lock keeper pulled in the boat and from the boat flew a little fairy called Bluebell. This little fairy flew to where Harleigh lay asleep and kissed her. This is how we all get our very own fairy.

We then walked down to a large clearing at the bottom of the wood by the river and said our hellos to the water nymphs. I then showed Harleigh the meeting place where the fairies gather each evening to sing and dance. Lots of animals come to have their differences sorted of by the king and queen of the fairies, before each one flies off to see that their child is safe asleep in bed. Nona Carol told me that I must not frighten Harleigh with my stories but Harleigh was so excited to be meeting them all. She was so excited that she stood in the fairy clearing and did a little dance, then asked me, “Babo, can fairy see me dance?” I told her the fairies will love her dancing, then we wrote a little note and left it in the fairy post box.

When we arrived back home Harleigh told Nona Carol all about the fairies and how she saw one asleep. Later when her mama and papa came to pick her up she also told them about her day with such excitement I thought she would burst.

But little Harleigh is also at that age where every bump and click in the night is sure to be something bad. We have all been there. The monsters under your bed. When you lie awake at night as a child and the pattern on your wallpaper turns into a face. When a door clicks open seemingly by itself, it's a sure sign that the bogeyman is on his way! These are the nightmares of children the world over. For some, they are real nightmares. I have worked with young people who for them the click of the latch on their bedroom door is a sign of real terror, a terror brought to them by someone who should be there to love and protect them, not abuse them! While for others, night time terrors are the terrors of war, real fears.

But here in this little wood where we live, the night time terrors are just terrors of the mind. They are just a product of a young and fertile imagination. They exist to be a safe way to warn us that that there can be real dangers in this world. But as adults it is our job to teach our young about safety while making sure they are safe.

I explained to Harleigh when she awakes sometimes while sleeping over at our house that although the wood looks very scary with the trees swaying in the wind, it's quite safe for her in the house. I tell her that nothing can get in the house and that outside the fairies are looking after both her and all the animals. I have also told her that she also has a secret weapon, she has a Babo! I have told her that no monster no matter how big or bad they are would dare go near Harleigh because they would have to get past Babo first and there's no way that could ever happen. And if Babo wasn't around they would have an even bigger problem because they would have to face Nona Carol and even Babo is scared of Nona Carol.

I guess we all have our fears!