Today

Have to face it, the shed is knackered. The floor has disintegrated after x years of being subjected to Somerset winters. I heaved out the cushions for the garden furniture - showers of foam cascaded onto the patio. Cushion covers full of little nibbled holes. The cushions had obviously provided very comfortable winter quarters for probably several generations of mice.

Some of the cushions appeared undamaged but Paul wasn't taking any risks - "mice have very weak bladders, they've probably pee-ed on all of them." So out they all went. I have to say, we never saw any sign of mice while Arietty was alive - Abby's altogether less of a threat, it seems.

In My Day

Our house was overrun with mice. Droppings on the kitchen worktop, scurryings in the basement; once I saw one in my bedroom. Daddy tried everything: ordinary mousetraps they laughed at. There were a couple of cats in the house but the house was so big that no cats could keep them under control. He tried poison - the mice seemed to like it for breakfast. He even tried the horrible sticky boards - placed outside the holes, they certainly caught the mice who then either died a long and painful death trying to get off the stickiness, or my father had to bludgeon them to death in the morning. This was not a job he relished, and anyway, they made new holes and mice breed at a horrifying rate, so that there were always plenty more in the walls.

Eventually we became resigned to living with these creatures.

During the 50's we became intrigued with the building of 2 television transmitter masts; one for the BBC at Crystal Palace, one for ITV, just up the road by All Saints' church. I don't think we acted like the "no mobile transmitter in my backyard" brigade; it was rather exciting. Even more exciting was to hear that they had both been switched on. We didn't have TV, so why the excitement? Because from that day, we never saw a single mouse again.

Which just proves that radio waves do addle your brain - at least mice brains.