When The Pigeon Comes Over The Tree....

Somewhat hard to believe, and sparking a thought that maybe India has April Fools day today, it appears that police are currently holding a pigeon under armed guard.  The pigeons rights are being looked after and there is no torture - it is in a locked but air conditioned cell - but the pigeon is being held for spying.  The pigeon was found in a Punjabi districtneighbouring Pakistan.  As the pigeon had a tag with a Pakistani number on it the police immediately lept to the conclusion that it had been sent in on a spying mission.  I've heard of Pigeon Pie before, now we have Pigeon Spy.

Geobite

Geocaching has suddenly become more popular in the household.  I don't have to sneak off.  This probably has something to do with one of "A"'s friends being a geocacher so suddenly "A" sees it as a cooler activity than when dad wants to do it.

Yesterda after the IRB Sevens "A" wanted to do some caching.  We found one next to the Thames in a lovely spot - recommend a visit to Marble Hill park.  The went for a bit of a drive.  After a while I stopped to see if there were any nearby.  And there was.  In a wood.  We set off, followed a good path.  And discovered that this wood was quite marshy.  The path was OK but if you strayted off then there were overtones of episodes out of Lord of the Rings.  We were successful in finding the cache, which is good news.  Possibly not so good was that there were mossies the size of zeppelins, very hungry mossies the size of zeppelins.  Now, I have always been one of those people that mossies, midges, and any other blood sucking bug, think look like meals on wheels.  They home in on me, whcih is good news for any companions as they are left alone.  Today my legs are one inflamed mass, and there are sore marks on my back and my arms.  I was eaten alive.

Mind you, I ge the last laugh.  I'm still on warfarin.  I wonder what a mouthful of that stuff does to a mossie!

Maybe This Explains It

Co-ordinated

I had a three day trip to Scotland with work this week.  I decided to squeeze in a bit of Geocaching. One of the many advantages of the iPhone is that it has a Geocache app.  And this is very handy as it can show you if there are any cahces nearby.  The actual GPS itself isn't quite accurate enough so a dedicated GPS is important (and I want to upgrade to something even better) but it makes a good starting point.  Over the 3 days I managed to get 10 caches, including some in Roslin alog a nice walk to a viaduct.  One of the things I like about Geocaching is that it gets me out and looking around rather than staying in the car.  It's a fun way to explore.

Eeeek eeeek

There I was this evening happily sitting down watching the recording of the Blues vs Wasps when I suddenly saw some movement.  I quite calmly said "should there be a mouse wandering across the floor".  A comment which elicited a small scream from "J" as she rapidly moved her feet off the floor.  I'm gueesing that the dear cats brought the mouse in earlier and it had been hiding under the hi-fi stand waiting for the cats to leave the room - note that thes weren't cats that had been scouring the room searching but had simply been asleep on the chairs".  Once they left he decided it was safe to come out.  As I was trying to work out how to catch him the cats came back in.  Mouse ran under the gas fire - luckily not on.  Cats managed to catch aforesaid mouse - with not a small amount of hissing at me, very possesive of their mice these cats.  Cats then ran into the garage with mouse.  I left them to it.

An hour later going in to the garage it was clear that the cats had managed to lose the mouse again.  I tried to help by tipping up the washing machine and moving things but couldn't see the mouse anywhere.  So I decided to leave them to it.  10 minutes later cats are in the daughters bedroom.  And one of them has a mouse in his mouth.  Which he then drops as I approach.  Great.  Rogue mouse in daughters bedroom.  Daughter asleep.  Cats hissing and growling.  Give the cat a clip round the ears for growling at me.  Spot mouse.  Mouse dives behind Mickey Mouse.  Move Mickey, mouse moves behind horse.  Cats leave room.  As I move the toy horse I wish my daughter didn't have so many cuddly toys on the floor.  Manage to corner mouse.  I say corner, he was trapped between a pad of paper, the bin, a koala and a hat box.  Squash mouse between wall and small collapsible storage thing.  Mouse climbs up and falls into storage thing, which is also full of little soft plushy toys etc.  Drop lid from a tin on top and carry entire thing downstairs, praying that mouse is still in the small collapsible storage thing.  Take it outside, remove lid.  One mouse looking at me, which I tip out on to the ground and it bounds off into the night rain.

Now I am hoping that both sightings were one and the same mouse.  The other possibility seems to be that the cats have decided to keep a mouse in every room for those moments when they get bored!