Tuesday 10 January 2023
My suspicions were confirmed yesterday; my cursory mouse-poo-check revealing no droppings had missed the fact that one had clearly been directed elsewhere by the cunning mouse who seems unperturbed by the overnight sonar repellent and by a fresh spray of peppermint oil and other pungent essential oils on the extractor fan he seems be trying to eat his way through. I had also failed to spot a few more plastic shavings off the extractor fan. This morning, while there appear to be no droppings on the paper towel below the extractor fan, I have seen that there is one attached to the peppermint oil spray on the extractor fan. FFS. Chris can deal with that, he’s taller.
On the wildlife theme, still no excitement on the wildlife cams other than extremely unflattering pictures of me leering at the camera before/after turning it on/off. I am massively optimistic that last night will have some exciting animal escapades as the moon was bright as it was a clear night. It’s of course raining now though, just after 08:00.
We had two successful deliveries yesterday, from Royal Mail and from Evri. DPD, according to the tracker, couldn’t find the address, and now it’s back in Carlisle. Last week, the mattress was delivered by AO. The two men who had driven up from Durham were great and didn’t complain. The driver, after they’d made their delivery, asked how well I knew the area. It transpired that, due to no phone signal and no data available, he was unable to ascertain their next address or how to get there. I got him onto our WiFi. Mileage-wise, their destination, I would guess at being a maximum of thirty miles away. His colleague expressed great surprise and disappointment on hearing that Google Maps suggested it would take them fifty minutes to get to their next delivery. As I watched them continue in the direction they were heading, I wondered what they’d think of the two miles of single-track road above a particularly remote valley they would soon be driving along. As the exceptionally grumpy delivery man who delivered our office chairs complained, the nearest town is further away than the moon. Give or take.
Yesterday, I did a minimal amount of work and very few home improvements. We had a lovely short walk through what is currently my favourite area of woodland. It’s all moss and fungi and magical; a delightful reminder that we live in the countryside, though I just need to look out of any of our windows to be reminded of that fact. Nice.
Today, I have some work and study to do, I’d like to spend another thirty minutes or so deleting photos from my almost-full Google drive (I started doing that yesterday) and I’d like to tidy/sort one small area of the house.