As you may or may not know, we are intending to move house next week; a week on friday to be exact if the developers are to be believed, the estate agents to be trusted and the if the solicitors look like their going to pull their finger out for the vast amounts of money we are paying them to do what on the face of it seems like a pretty shitty job. Being criticised down the telephone by yours truly on an almost daily basis and telling them over and over that I’ve already answered this question and provided that certificate. Honestly the solicitor on the buyers side has asked me the same question 3 times which I answered comprehensively the first time, its a real struggle to try and not be condescending towards them. So far I’ve proved to them that 2 particular certificates we haven’t supplied are because the law changed afetr we had the things fitted theyre concerned about. Thats legal stuff, which apparently is their job. God Help us if we ever move again, i’ll go on holiday for 3 months and just let someone else sort it all out. Its not that we haven’t got stuff to worry about, the log burner which I painted with the wrong paint because I was slightly misled on Amazon and also slightly at fault because I didn’t read the instructions, but if it wasnt for the nice men at Amazon then I wouldn’t have made the mistake would I? It is therefore Jeff Bozo’s fault and he should pay for the life insurance of our new buyers should the fumes re-appear after burning the fuck out of the log burner for the last 4 months to try and burn the paint off. I’m 85% confident it’s all gone.

Anyway with the log burner on the list of irritations along with the kids assumptions that everything is normal and shopping and meeting up with single friends in a socially distanced way is more important than packing our shit. Because the various persons supposedly in charge of our move are being less than helpful, we’ve missed the date for a removals lorry to take our stuff and so we’ve managed to snag one for the wednesday before the friday we move; a week tomorrow and so on Wednesday night when we bed down, we will sleep in a house which will look like we’ve had trouble with the bailiffs and have nothing left save for an x box, a laptop, a telly and a router and some blow up mattresses. It’ll be like living in a ridiculously Middle England Squat, tea at the pub and a plastic box full of cleaning fluids and rubber gloves to look forward to in the days to follow. 4  pearls rattling around in a 1850’s shell. On Sunday night this week, my daughter saw a rat in her bedroom, I played it down to be a large mouse, but with only a knowledge of dissection of rats when I was at Secondary school, Rattus Rattus, I’d say it was probably a rat. She panicked as it ran behind the packing boxes and retreated downstairs where the likelihood of it following her were diminished. The door was shut, a trap with stale cheddar put out, and the light turned off, sealing the bottom of the door with a roll of wrapping paper wedged against the gap with some slippers. The morning came, and the mouse was still at large, having dug a hole in the corner of the room, ripping the pile of the glossy grey carpet and making no effort to cover his tracks. I hoovered some up, and stuffed the remaining loose threads down the impossibly small hole under the skirting board.

The next day, the same happened, except this time the mouse dug a hole in the opposite side of the room scratching around behind the packing cases and making an invisible nuisance of himself, while my daughter made an entirely conspicuous nuisance of her self in the lounge. Who’s cleaning that up, the fucking washing up fairy? So Day two Mouse patrol saw us completely moving out the packing boxes and anything else which our nemesis could hide under and placing two new traps, by the holes, smothered in Nutella.

Work came and went, with several hours of torturous moving house admin, whilst driving around the lanes of Worcestershire, dropping in and out of phone coverage, beautifully irritating. Returning back to the house saw no mouse action save for plenty of droppings proving as hard as  glitter to hoover up from this deep pile carpet. The house was like Greenland again and having run out of logs weeks ago I’ve been buying large bags from the farm shop instead of a truckload as I usually do, I’ve spent a fortune and today they put the price up to £14 from £12.50 on Sunday, profiteering from our tepid misery. 

Then sometime between 9 and 10:20 pm as I went out side to grab some wire wool to stuff down the mouse holes, there was an unheard snap and the mouse was no more.

Tonight I will sleep easier without waking up in a cold sweat thinking I’m going to have to replace the carpet in my daughter’s room before a week on Friday. Another potential obstacle we may have to navigate in this perfect storm of moving house.