Early Morning Joy

It's another beautiful August morning, dark and rainy, wet and clean.  I'm inside, drinking my favourite coffee out of my favourite mug.  Does it get better than this?  I suspect it does and I'm ready and waiting.

I jumped out of bed this morning, I mean literally.

I was lying in bed marvelling that my tooth (or rather the hole where my tooth used to live) was no longer aching.  I had self-diagnosed "dry socket", a condition I'd never heard of till last Saturday and which, thanks to the internet, I am now one of the world's leading experts in.

I did loads of tapping yesterday for the pain, remembering how Maria Huntsman had tapped away an entire abscess, a success she might never have experienced had she not been holidaying in the US at the time and without access to several thousand dollars for dental treatment.

So there I am, minding my own business when I became aware...

I was not alone.

I could hear quite a lot of... scrabbling, I think is the right word above my head.

This isn't that unusual.  Nearly every crow in Ireland seems to live in the trees around our house and I'm used to them landing on the chimney and roof at my end of the house.

Since the Bat incident which I'm still too traumatised (ok, too busy) to talk about I've realised there is probably half of Noah's ark living in the attic and actually, I realised the noise sounded closer, more internal than birds jumping on and off the chimney stack.

It seemed to be coming from the corner of the room, ie from the attic above my head. 

Then suddenly I realised it was coming from my room and I squinted my eyes open to see a large black form in the corner.  What was that...It must be... had to be...A RAT!!!!!!!

I threw my body into the air, grabbed my dressing gown - aware even in my horror that I didn't want to be running round the house naked - and leapt out of the room, shutting the door tight behind me.

"ARGHHH" I yelled.

Then "ARGHHH" again as the adrenalin rushed.

A sleepy voice responded.  It was Jake.

"Mu-um", he groaned, "wassup?"

"There's SOMETHING in my room, eughh, a rat..."

"Well" says Jake, in that voice you know signals someone's going to go one better than you, "Fluffy's just been sick in my room..."

"Where's he now?" I said.

"Dunno, he went out..."

Yes, my rat turned out to be a cat who, not content with getting sick in Jake's room, had decided to come and get sick in mine too.  Obligingly, it must be said, on a Debenhams carrier bag.

Today is going to be another great day.  Just watch.

Comments

[Lucie Storrs]

Wow, Marion, two posts in two days! Your writing is always such a joy to read - appropriately, given the subject matter - just wanted you to know that you're NOT the only person reading it as you suspected yesterday!

[Nicola Cairncross]

Yep, I'm here too, larfing my head off!

How could you mistake your own cat for a rat! Contact lens issue?

We have been fighting a fieldmouse infestation all summer, not helped by the fact they are so SWEET! Keep blogging Marion, we love it! Nicola

[Marie Taylor]

Oh dear- cats ,rats and bats- maybe you could extend the fear factor to animals of more than 3 letters next time- how about tigers, wolves and giraffes.Then again- I expect you dont see many of those in Tipperary!- dentists and opticians for you Ms Wry methinks.
mariex