|
I got the rat! I got the rat! I got the rat! It only took a month, most nights with 5-6 traps outside, and I tried chicken, sausage, raw lamb, suet, mince pie, corn, hen food, bread, cake, potato and all kinds of different baits. He finally went for some Lidl milk chocolate. He is small and pretty manky, but he is well and truly dead – the metal bar of the trap crushed his skull and gave him a nose bleed!
For my birthday in December 2006 we went for a long weekend to Rome. Grace took a train down from Bologna and we got some cheap flights from Heathrow with Alitalia. Grace found a very nice small apartment which we stayed in, within walking distance of the city centre but not in a noisy area. Our trip to Rome was very eventful – our search on Friday morning for a bakery where we’d be
Friday night Annette was having a seafood pasta dish and thought she’d crunched on a bit of shell but it turned out to have been the veneer from one of her incisors – fortunately she wasn’t in pain so was able to wait till we got home to get it sorted out. Sunday morning and Being used to wandering around London with rucksacks and always wary of pickpockets we don’t have anything valuable within easy reach, Annette especially, so all they managed to get before Annette realised what was going on was a red pashmina scarf that she had used to cover everything else. I got a hold of the pikey’s shoulder and pushed her away and towards the ground. Instinctively I was going to give her a size 15 imprint in her thigh as well, When they say “fresh fish” at a market, they actually mean it. We were in a studio flat place and went out to a nearby market on Saturday morning to get something for breakfast, lunch and supper. We got some bread and cheese for breakfast, fish for lunch and chicken for dinner. Started slow-cooking the chicken and ate breakfast with plans on going out for a wander and then returning to cook the fish at lunchtime – only while we were eating breakfast, the bag that had the fish in it started to jump around. All three fish were still alive! I don’t know if that was the biggest shock, or if it was that once Annette cut their heads off, their tails were still flapping about for a good half an hour, and they were still trying to breathe and moving their mouths for at least a few minutes (could’ve been longer but we had to get rid of the heads because they were a bit spooky!)
The hens each eat about 100-150g of special food pellets which contain all the stuff that they need in their diet and they like to eat through the day so it’s not really practical to ‘feed’ them daily: if it rains, the pellets get wet and disintegrate. We keep their food in a big hopper thing – it stores 10-12 kilos of food and lasts about a month between fills. They think it’s great!
Before we got the hens, we built a coop for them to sleep in. While clearing the ground where the coop would go, we found a mouse in a nest. There were babies in the nest so we moved it to another part of the garden and got on with our business. Once we got the hens we wondered if the mice would steal their food. A year went by, then two, and we didn’t see any mice at all. Last summer I was out in the garden digging for something, and found another mouse. I caught it, showed it what the underside of my size 15 rigger boots looked like, and buried it. There was a second mouse – but we only saw that one because the hens were making a commotion – not because they were afraid of it, but because one of the hens had caught the mouse and had it in her beak: the others wanted it. They ran around the garden for a few minutes and then Penny, the hen who’d caught it, tossed her head back – throwing the mouse into the air – and then caught it – and swallowed it whole. If I didn’t see it with my own eyes I would never have believed it. For about a week afterwards I put a small trap like this one outside the coop once the hens had gone to bed each night, and each morning I’d find a mouse. After about a week the capture rate fell and stopped. Every couple of months since then I have done the same – leave them for a while then blitz them once a new family moves in.
I lost a couple of traps – no idea where they went – but I’d set them, go out to check on them only to find that they’d gone. I blamed the neighbour’s cat – thinking that it was using my trap as a fast food takeaway. Last weekend I put a couple of traps down and in the morning I had a mouse – but only one trap. I couldn’t see why the cat would steal one mouse but leave the other. On Monday night I saw the security lights come on in the garden (they detect movement in/around the coop – the hens know how to use them and will sometimes have a late night, sitting on the perch outside. When the lights go off, one hen gets up and walks around to put them back on again, before returning to the perch). I looked through the window in the conservatory and saw my problem: it isn’t a cat, or a clever mouse, it is a rat! During my time catching the mice I’ve found that the most effective bait is chocolate – I’d been using Cadbury’s Fingers because the biscuit gives a good anchor for the trap’s hook, but Lidl’s cheap chocolate works just as well really – despite what one northern friend suggested, southern mice are not posh or picky.I need now to find a good rat bait, but first of all, I need a good trap which they can’t simply steal. Down to the local hardware shop yesterday then, and I got three rat traps and a couple of new mouse traps. The rat traps are nasty things – I was always a bit nervous around the mouse traps because it’d hurt if they got my fingers, but I don’t know if my fingers would survive the rat traps – they really are mean. The mouse traps are only 99p each so it doesn’t matter too much when they get stolen, but the £3 rat traps can’t keep going walking – so obviously they have to be secured. I’ve built myself a trap array and will be setting it each night until I get the rat(s). I will post my findings here, with a note of the bait used. Last night I used a chip on each trap and caught nothing. I don’t yet know if the rat I saw was just passing through or if he was a local so I could be chasing my tail. He might only come out food shopping once a week, we’ll have to see. The only problem I can imagine now that I have some proper equipment is that the rat trap is so strong that if it catches a mouse it’ll simply explode. Their eyes are usually bulging out of their heads with the little traps as it is! Bring it on! The year’s chilli growing (my original notes from June/July are here) went very well – the Thai Red Dragon produced a massive crop of probably close to 100 chillis, each one perfectly red and very hot. We use them when making curry, using probably 2-3 at a time. Here is one of the chilli harvests – there were about four harvests of this size.
Towards the end of the summer the plants both got infected with some kind of aphids, so I drenched them with a washing-up liquid solution through a spray gun. It didn’t really do much good the first couple of times but eventually it had an effect and they died out. The worst problem was for the bigger chilli plant – the pot fell over and one big branch snapped off so those chillies never really ripened. The smaller chillis are certainly better to grow though, the each individual chilli grows and ripens much more quickly than the bigger ones, and the small ones outnumbered the big ones probably ten to one. The big ones were not very hot either, so they still needed 2-3 to make a good curry. I have let the big plant die and have left the small one outside: if it survives the winter, great, but if not, I’ll grow some more plants from seed – three or four different varieties, but all similar to the Thai Red Dragon. I’m glad I tried, not just because it saved money (we’ve not bought chilli for months), but because it was fun to have some productive pet plants to look after. Bigger and better next year. When you stepped out of the back door of our house in Singapore where I lived as a child, you could either turn left and down the long line of steps to the bathroom and lower compound, or you could walk in a diagonal to your right and get to the washing lines, and then the chicken coops if you walked past those. I was near the washing lines one morning when I noticed that just beyond them and closer to the boundary fence of our compound was something glistening in the sun, seemingly in mid-air. I wondered if it was a group of fairies and went closer to see exactly what it was. I saw that, between a low hanging branch from the sour rambutan tree and the top of a low bush, a spider’s web hung in the sun. Because it was fresh it was almost moist, or at least, that was its appearance. There, just to the right of the centre of the web was a dragonfly. It was no ordinary dragonfly. It was the most attractive, most handsome, proud, elegant and breathtakingly striking dragonfly. His entire body was a vivid vermillion. Each of his six legs was pure black, as though he was wearing highly polished ebony boots. His wings were filled with the seven colours of the rainbow, yet transparent. I was close enough to see the contours on each wing, each segment and section quite plainly. His head, although large and round, was in good proportion altogether: he did not have that “insect” look of a lopsidedly larger than required head. What looked like his eyeballs appeared to rotate within their sockets. The most striking thing of all about this dragonfly was the expression on his face. I saw arrogance and defiance. Surely this must be a prince. Perhaps he was a prince dragonfly who had disobeyed his king father’s orders to not go out on his own without his bodyguards, and now he was in trouble. He was angry, and there was an air of determination about him as well, and I felt that I had to help him. (We could talk later about making me a princess and taking me off to a big castle with my own servants.) I looked on the ground around me to see what I could use. A small twig which was knobbly and gnarled seemed like the best tool in the absence of something more scientific. My intention was to “dig” the dragonfly out of the web until he could fly away. Just as I was about to start, I noticed the webmaster approaching his prey. He was big, black and furry with a large round body and a face that could not conceal his delight and glee. I jabbed at it with my twig, not going too close because the end of the twig was only about 2 or 3 inches away from the tips of my fingers. The spider hesitated, moved slightly to one side, and waited for my next move. I stabbed the air in his direction, and he moved back, still keeping his beady eye on me. I flicked my hand towards him, and perhaps the sharp movement of air communicated to him that I meant business, and he backed right off, towards the edge of the web. Swiftly, I got down to the task of rescuing the dragonfly. Unfortunately, I messed up the whole operation. My twig broke enough of the web to make a hole so that the dragonfly struggled to regain his balance. I used my left hand to remove the sticky string of the web from his wings. What happened next came as a huge shock to me. As my finger brushed against his face, he bit me! As I yanked my finger back in pain, I ripped the web even more. The spider started to fidget at the edge of the web, moving a few steps to the left and then to the right and back to the left again. I glared at the dragonfly, and saw that in all the commotion, he was stuck even more so than before. I had only made things worse. The spider continued to fidget impatiently at the edge of the web. I searched my finger for the puncture wound. I cannot remember now if there was any obvious injury or not, but I do remember the sharp pain when he bit (or stung) me. I decided to go indoors and get a more effective tool. As I turned to leave, I told them both to not move, and that I would be back shortly. I returned with a long pair of tongs and a kitchen towel. How I was going to use them I did not know, but they seemed the best things to get. I must have been gone for not more than a minute at most. When I returned, the spider had already begun to bind the dragonfly with sticky thread. He gave me a warning glare. I looked at the dragonfly, still a beautiful specimen, but conquered and bound. I had no choice but to concede. I watched the spider continue with his task. The final look from the dragonfly to me was still totally defiant, as if to challenge me, with a hot “What are you looking at!?!” One so proud must be a true prince, I concluded. After a few minutes I went back into the house to return the tongs and towel. My finger was still a bit sore, but at least it was not me in a spider’s web, dying a horrible death. A few days later, the spider was nowhere to be seen. His web had been repaired, but now was abandoned. The remains of the regal victim still hung from the web: a pair of transparent wings which no longer reflected any colour at all, and the hollowed out crisp and dry vermillion shell, still in the long shape of a dragonfly’s body. I was filled with regret that my rescue effort had not only been in vain but had made things worse. He must have been such a character. I hope his family did not miss him too much. Although nearly nine, I could not even help a dragonfly. It was something I was not able to do, so would never even try to do again. Nonetheless, from that day to this, no dragonfly has left any impression on me as much as did that vermillion victim that humid day in Singapore when I was… almost nine! For Annette’s birthday this August we went camping. We’ve never done it before, but it turned out to be great fun. Grace came over from Italy and spent the weekend with us – we wanted to go to Lulworth Cove and stay around Wareham in Dorset but by the time we went to book a B&B they were all full. Camping was actually the only way we could go, so we bought our own tent, sleeping bags, gas stove etc, and after a couple of practice runs in our own garden with the hens helping, off we went. Our trip was very successful and not at all stressful. We stayed at a campsite which was specially for tents (no caravans) and that had received good reviews on the websites we had checked. We had read on their website that the owners were friendly and helpful, so it sounded ideal for our first visit.
The holiday was great, but the Woodlands Camping Park campsite wasn’t – the owners, knowing that we were newbies, gave us a pitch that was basically a concrete base with 3″ of moss growing on top of it. We had done some test runs with the tent in the garden, with limited space and hens getting in the way, so were confident about putting it up for real – but when it came to it, with three of us it took much longer than it took Daniel on his own at home! All except 5 of the tent pegs refused to go in without bending. So we went into the local town and bought some solid steel pegs and a rubber mallet, but they still bent! We found the owner and persuaded him to come to help us, thinking that we were doing something wrong. He said that our tent pegs were of poor quality, and asked which hammer we were using. Eventually he reluctantly offered to get “a tool”. Back he came with what looked like a giant crowbar at one end and a sharp point at the other. He used that to bore a hole for us to then finish off hammering in our tent peg, and stopped, having broken out into a sweat. Annette had to direct him to keep repeating it, until 6 holes were made for the pegs, and another for the windbreaker, of which one pole had been broken by the concrete base of the pitch. The other tentpegs were left to do their best – half in and half out, but all bent. He KNEW the nature of that pitch, yet pretended to be surprised, and look puzzled at his own ground. Annette still resents him for trying to make out that it was our fault and shortcoming rather than his shameful deceit – ok then, we’ll settle for shameful pretence. Later that evening, just after 9 o’ clock, his wife went round the camp site offering sweets to the campers as well as to children in the tents. We were rather astonished at this, but accepted it to be their “thing” of children and clean teeth, and were ready to politely decline her offer of sweets. We needn’t have worried – she didn’t come round to us, and so we didn’t get offered any. (Fair to say that we were not missed out on the second night, but we declined. Grace accepted them though.) We shopped at Lidl on the way down, and had everything we needed to make a proper cooked breakfast, and we think that we can say that even for our first camping trip, it was better than most of the seasoned campers managed:
As Annette loves seafood, we had planned to get some fresh fish during the trip, but we hadn’t planned it well enough, and the seafood places were either shut or not on our way when we were ready. So there is that treat to come for the next time we are in the West Country, which won’t be at the Woodlands Camping Park. As you’ll know if you’ve been following the site recently, I’m growing chillies. The original messafe is here and the most recent update is here. Today, three weeks on from the last update, I am pleased to report not just progress, but the first harvest!
The target was actually a harvest by the start of the World Cup, so we missed that by a few days. We did hit the revised target of “by the knockout stages” – but Annette took the first two ripened chillies on 21st June – the day after England topped their group and three days before their Second Round match against Ecuador. There are probably 20-25 green chillies at the moment, and as you can see here, four good sized ripe red ones. They have a crispness to them that I’ve not seen before in a chilli, so I’d like to think that it’s because they are fresh and happy chillies. They’re pretty hot too – suprisingly hot given that they’re eating only water and tomato food! The cayenne chillies are still growing, still curling, and still keeping themselves to themselves – we’re not sure what they are up to – they’re already about 10x bigger than the ripening Thai Dragon chillis – and they’re still growing!
As you’ll know if you’ve been following the site recently, I’m growing some chillies. The original posting is here and the first update is here. Today, a week on, I’m pleased to report excellent progress.
As you can see, the Thai Dragon continues to march on – yet more baby chillies are joining the still-growing original ones. They are all still green at the moment and while there really are loads (easily two dozen), they are difficult to capture with the camera because they hide between the leaves. This week’s big shock though – the Cayenne has all of a sudden woken up – and quite literally is busy producing two corkers: corkscrew chillies! They are already a fair bit bigger than the Thai Dragon’s biggest, and they are only about a week old – they really did spring out from nowhere.
The chillies spent the weekend outdoors – we had two very sunny days – bone dry and about 25°C both days. I think the sun has done them a lot of good – they’ve taken up another dose of tomato food and drank nearly 2.5 litres over the last few days. Wow – the chillies really are doing well! There must be a dozen growing already – still green but hopefully they’ll soon start to go red and we’ll be able to harvest them in time for the World Cup! Not sure we’ll make the group stages – still a way to go yet – but the knockout stages shouldn’t be a problem. More chance of the chillies making it than Rooney I reckon. (I heard that the doctors gave him a scan on Thursday and confirmed that he really does look like that.)
During my very first day at school, when I was almost 7, my teacher did not use my name at all. She spoke to the other pupils, but not directly to me. I could understand her when she spoke in English, but quickly picked up that there were others in the class who could not understand what she was saying. I became very talkative and noisy, just so that she would notice me and address me. I did not make friends with anyone, just talked at anyone who was around me. I asked one of the girls what her name was, in an effort to be friendly, but when her response was an alarmed, “AHH!” I knew that I was wasting my time with her, and in any case, she looked as though she was going to burst into tears. Two weeks later, we had a different teacher – quite suddenly, and without announcement. I kept looking around the corner for the first teacher to return, but she never did. Oh good, as she was rather stern anyhow. The second teacher introduced herself. “My name is Mrs Tan,” she said with a smile. Then she went around in turn, pointing to each child and reading out their name from the name badges. I proudly stuck out my chest for her to read my name label. She studied it for a few moments longer than she had for the others. She hesitated, then asked me what my mother called me at home. “Ann” I replied. She looked at my badge again. It did not make sense. Then she found her solution. She did not know how to pronounce “Annette”, so she called me by my middle name then and for the rest of the year. That was how I knew that my name was not only “Ann” but also “Leonie”, though it was not until a year later that I found out that my name actually was “Annette”! |
||||||
|
Copyright © 2012 32 Ashburton Road - All Rights Reserved |
||||||
able to get something for breakfast that we could take on the train to Perugia (to go to the Baci chocolate factory) was interrupted when about two dozen riot police cars turned up from nowhere and closed the top and bottom of the street that we were on – I hung around to see what was going on – and ended up watching a fascist march! Later in the day, we were stranded at the chocolate factory because there was a nationwide bus strike so we had no way of getting back to the train station. We got an umpa lumpa to call us a taxi in the end (cheeky Perugian taxi drivers start the meter when they answer the phone, and it took them 45 mins to arrive!).
