Loir of the Jungle

It is that time of year when a mouse's thoughts turn to 'Where the hell am I going to spend the winter?'

'La Grange en Poulet'' is not an uncommon reply. We get quite sensitive to those little scrabbling sounds coming from behind things and inside things, and have spent some time recently persuading them that an alternative is required.

Today we thought we heard a mousey sound from the wood pile but could find no sign of an offending rodent. Tricia asked if I had looked in the fire?

The fire is a mouse-proof cast iron box with a cast iron door

The cast iron fire is the sort of place you would put the cheese if you were expecting a raid from a band of very hungry, cheese-obsessed mice. I said "Don't be daft, how would they get in?"

I then admitted that I had indeed checked it for mice the previous week but felt a little foolish.

Anyway, I opend the door just to prove myself wrong and two black eyes stared back at me. I shut the door and thought 'Bloody hell...'

This was not a mouse, it was the size of a hamster. I opened the door again and saw its long bushy tail. A loir, what the Romans called an edible dormouse.

We have an army of these generally benign rodents living on the roof. We can hear them scuffling about at night but have never seen one. Presumably this one had been arseing around on the roof, showing off to its mates, and fallen down the chimney.

Attempts to entice it into a box failed. It made a break for the bookshelf and disappeared. I left the doors open on the assumption that I knew we had a loire that wanted out, and had no reason to think that there were a load of mice just waiting to move in.

An hour or so later the loir had not discovered any of the open doors and was skulking high up on the wall in the conservatory.

Kinda cute, eh?

I opened the window right next to it and tried encouraging it toward the window with a long strip of wood. Rather than bolt at the sight of a chap with a big stick, it let me chuck it under the chin with the thing. It finally made a move toward the window and tried to get to the opening but could not negotiate the shiny metal and slipped indecorously onto the floor and disappeared behind the bookcase again.

An hour later it was back up on the wall. This time I approached it with the long flat stick and slid it under the frozen creature and with a deft flick batted it clean through the window - a bloody brilliant conversion, worth three points on any scale.

Note to any blog-reading mice: Mice do not get this humane treatment and are terminated with extreme prejudice.