Creature comforts of country living
It was the god-awful stench that woke her from her slumber in the middle of the night.
For once it wasn’t coming from her partner, who lay snoring next to her in the darkness.
Confused, she snapped on the bathroom light and gingerly lifted the duvet to peer under the bed.
And there it was... Her beloved hunter-gatherer cat had delivered her a gift - a weasel, which was very much still alive in the grips of moggy and had soured the air with a rancid stink as part of its defence mechanism.
The furry little blighter took off, fanging around the room before bolting into the wardrobe. She slammed the doors and debated her next killer move, but the rancid stink got the better of her and she retired downstairs for the rest of the night.
Us country-dwellers have to share our homes with some odd creatures. In warmer climates the ant population means you can’t leave anything out on the bench. Gross, yes, but I have friends who have come home from holiday and discovered a family of fieldmice had moved in and made themselves at home in the dish drawer.
Another friend heard a flapping in her log burner and found a dazed and confused barn owl which had fallen down the chimney. That was the same week her delightful cat decided to show a rat around the house, giving it a personal tour of the kitchen.
On one of the rare warm nights we’ve had recently, a mate was watching TV with the sliding door open when a possum decided it wanted to check out his curtains.
His fox terrier, full of bravado as they usually are, went to chase it away but only succeeded in mustering it down the hallway. Believe me, if you’ve ever had a possum in the house you’ll know they’re not that easy to get rid of.
Possibly the worst pest infestation we have to deal with in the country is the dreaded clusterfly. The big black DC10s breed outside in the ground, but once they’ve eyed up your place they’re not big on leaving in a hurry.
Unfortunately they die in their thousands, emitting a pheromone that invites the rest of their family over, making for one big black mass grave in your ceiling cavity.
I’ve heard of someone who sprayed his house with sheep drench to get rid of the damn things, but all he achieved was ruining a house-lot of aluminium joinery.
And it’s not just inside where we have to deal with unwanted guests. The sheep next door to my place were fattened for their trip to the works by eating my grapevine and blackcurrant bush.
But they didn’t stop there. After discovering the tunnel house, they feasted on lettuces, cabbages, broccoli and carrots.
There’s some new ones next door now who might be kinder on the garden. Their owner has been feeding them on biscuits.
The weasel, by the way, snuggled up in my friend’s clothes on a shelf in the wardrobe and quietly, stinkily died, to be found later by the Man Of The House.