Seeing Things! 29.08.07

It hasn't taken Robbie long to slip back into bad habits. He must have dosed off at the computer last night because he came to bed at about 2.00am and woke me up to say that he had seen a mouse in the lounge. I wasn't convinced as I have seen absolutely no evidence of mice and we have never had mice before. It was his next sentence that really made me smell a rat (forgive the pun). He told me that it was either a mouse or a cat and he had heard it scratching at the back door before he saw it. There is a significant difference in size between a mouse and a cat and it is unlikely that one could be mistaken for the other! I think he must have been dozing and got muddled up with what was real and what wasn't. It reminded me of an incident when my first husband was alive.

It was the early hours of the morning and Eric and I were asleep in bed. Suddenly he gave a loud scream and sat bolt upright, he told me that there had been a hairy mouse looking at him and I reassured him that he had been dreaming and he should go back to sleep. He was asleep again within minutes but I was just dozing when he screamed even louder, I was just in time to see something white and fluffy fly through the air, land on the floor and scurry under the bed. It gradually dawned on me that Sam's hamster had escaped from his cage, come all the way upstairs and decided to get in bed with Eric. By this time Eric was standing on the bed and refused to move until I caught the hamster, this proved challenging as he had frightened it with all the noise - not to mention the flying lesson. I had to go downstairs and search for a fishing net and after stalking my prey for a few minutes I managed to catch him and return him to the safety of his cage. Eric went straight back to sleep, but I was wide awake after all that excitement and by the time I dozed off it was time to get up. The hamster was fine, but I felt a bit off after the disrupted night

The only other incident involving a small rodent that I can recall was when Grandad was looking after Sam's hamster. We returned from holiday to find that he had been feeding an empty cage and the hamster was missing. Later in the day we discovered that it had set up home in the oven!! She had built a nest and a food stash in a baking tray, but there was no sign of the hamster. We pulled out the oven, fridge, washing machine, dryer and all the other bits and bobs in the kitchen, but she remained at large. Sam and Laura set several cunning traps around the kitchen hoping that she turned up. The cooker had to be cleaned and disinfected, but Sam was adamant that we couldn't use the oven until the hamster was caught in case we accidentally cooked it. He has a simple solution "we could just eat take away" he couldn't understand why I said no! We eventually caught the hamster when it created a second den under the computer cupboard.

Meticulous Attention to Detail

Now that you have been introduced to Sam you can see that he and Robbie have a lot in common. They are like 'me' and 'mini me'. Sam is like a Sherpa, he carries all that is essential to him in a huge rucksack and he becomes very distressed if he is parted from it. Robbie is just the same, he carries a ton of ironmongery in the bottom of his rucksack so that he is equipped for an array of potential train emergencies should the need arise. He even took it on honeymoon with him! Sam often provides too much detail and bores people rigid - sound familiar?

It was very windy last night and Sam told me he was concerned about his rabbit and about the garden fence blowing down. A couple of years ago he had similar worries about his hamster Seth the Second who usually lived in the hall. He kept taking his cage upstairs and parking him in my bedroom. There was absolutely no way that I was going to share my room with Seth, I may have to put up with things going round and round inside my head but I drew the line at Seth going round and round on his wheel! Sam thought Seth could get cold at night so I asked him where hamsters come from. I was attempting to point out that they are used to cold nights, but Sam completely misunderstood me and announced that they come from Petsmart! I said "no, where do they come from?" Sam gave a deep sigh and gave me a very detailed account of hamster reproduction; he seemed to know more about it than most hamsters!

By this time I had given up on the conversation. It reminded me of an episode that happened two or three years before. I came downstairs one morning to find Sam in the lounge with two hamster cages on the floor. At first I didn't notice that one cage was empty, but when I asked Sam what he was doing he explained quite calmly that he was breeding the hamsters. He said "they have done everything properly so they can go back to their cages now" He knew exactly when the babies were due and he watched for signs of pregnancy, but to my relief we did not witness a population boom in the world of hamsters. When it was clear that there were no babies Sam decided to try a different tactic. He got up early one morning and I found him reading to the hamsters from the chapter on reproduction in the hamster care book!!