Now that lockdown has been enforced I thought something good to do would be to keep a journal/lock of funny moments and memories during the international crisis. Given that all conversations seem to be about panic buying, lockdowns, social distancing, school closures, symptoms, covid 19, hand washing and bog roll, the important happy things are being forgotten or brushed under the carpet. In years to come, I want to be like my Granny was with her World War 2 tales of being evacuated and eating mouldy sandwiches, the camaraderie songs sung and the clever rationing tips they came up with. I want to tell toddler P and her children of how the small amount of time we spent restricted to our home and garden had some really funny good times, even though there were concerns of going stir crazy with cabin fever.

So my first little quip is the friend that didn’t understand social distancing and decided to become a lodger in my home. As you know from previous posts, I’ve taken on a garden project which started small and evolved over the summer. Well given the improved weather and lack of social outings being permitted, I took back to some of my digging escapades and the weekend. Oh how I wish I hadn’t, during the sudden return to the garden make over I unearthed a field mouse’s home.

This unearthing I was oblivious to, however little Tom wasn’t as he decided to boycott Boris’s rules of social distancing and not entering the homes others. That’s right, the little grey fella (or lady, I never got close enough to check) decided he was going to move in. After hiding under my couch for sometime he trotted out, bold as brass ready to watch an episode of Ant and Dec’s Saturday night take away. As you can imagine, I wasn’t prepared to share my Dairy Milk and in the interests of minimising the virus spread I wasn’t wanting to toast his arrival with my G&T either. Instead I dived up on the couch and screamed.

True to his cartoon doppelgänger, Tom legged it and hid elsewhere in my living room. So then I broke my social distancing rule…sorry Boris but I didn’t think Tom would be adept in using hand gel and I deemed this an essential situation for a key worker to enter my home. Luckily my neighbours were obliging can came to my rescue as I danced from sofa to sofa like a homemade Ninja Warrior assault course. In have you read my 40 tough mudders post, think that only less mud, slippers, dressing gown and face pack. It wasn’t pretty.

Sadly, Tom met his fate and had an impromptu burial in nextdoor a wheelie bin using a make shift old Tupperware box coffin. Now I’m not one for such fatal eviction notices but Tom and several eight legged friends just wouldn’t take my Barbara Windsor style “get outta my pub” requests so we had to become more forceful.

Lesson learned for me though. Now that the mouse gate crisis has been averted, any future landscape gardening will include vigilant shutting of the French doors and eyes, ears peeled for little furry friends, redirecting them to anywhere but indoors! As Mr Johnson says little mice, stay at home…in your own home!