…all in the course of a normal week in the ‘G’ household! No one could ever accuse us of leading a dull life that’s for sure.

When we moved from the city to ‘the country’ nearly ten years ago we hadn’t realised that we would possibly be sharing our home with all manner of creatures, dead or alive. The first time our puppy brought in the head of a rabbit nearly sent me fleeing back to  South East London. The time he brought in a rat as flat as a piece of paper nearly had me seeking out medication for ‘my nerves’

Then there was the time a bat flew around our bedroom in the middle of the night, except it became a regular occurence and the fishing net became a permanent feature in the room. I remember lying in bed with the duvet over my head as the flying rat kept swooping down towards me wondering what the hell I had let myself in for. But then I would look out of my bedroom window in the morning and see the fields of sheep and sigh with joy at how beautiful and peaceful it all was.

Fast forward nine years, we are now living in our dream home, still surrounded by sheep and although there are bats living in the loft they don’t disturb us as long as we don’t disturb them. We very rarely get a rogue bird fly in and unlike our last house we’ve never had any trapped birds in the chimneys, thank goodness. So when I went seeking an explanation for the bangs and crashes I kept hearing the other night the last thing I expected to see was a squirrel in the lounge. At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me, I mean who gets a squirrel in their lounge? I thought it must be some kind of hybrid giant rat and went fleeing upstairs to my sons where I stood hopping up and down wondering how on earth we were going to get rid of whatever it was. I have no idea how the squirrel didn’t manage to smash the room up, it was jumping from candlestick to lamp, to window sill. Twitter advised us to offer it chocolate biscuits so we offered it chocolate fingers, sadly it wasn’t interested. Big H and Big E eventually managed to corner the squirrel while I stood outside the room wearing Little M’s knight’s helmet ( no laughing but I did have visions of it jumping at my face and a trip to hospital inevitable!) ready to scare it into running out of the front door which after about 45 minutes it did. I was left cleaning the poo, wee and chewed up wood which was the result of it biting chunks out of the window frames. We have no idea how it got in the room other than perhaps down the chimney?

A couple of weeks ago Big E bought two stick insects from the Scouts stall at a summer fete…I used to have them when I was a child, I have to say they are pretty boring pets except one didn’t make it through the week and to finish the week off Little I’s hamster departed to join the other hamster spirits in the sky. I couldn’t help but be a little relieved that it is one less member of the family to move home soon.

After nearly six years in our house we have suddenly ‘adopted’ a duck…we have two ponds and although ducks live on them and we’ve fallen in love with the ducklings we have seen waddling around the garden we have never been able to tame them. However one cheeky duck, whom we have named Clarice, has taken to knocking on the kitchen doors every afternoon looking for seed. If the doors are open she has taken it upon herself to come into the kitchen looking for it! The poo present she left a few days ago wasn’t too pleasant though! I know I’m being soppy but if she doesn’t make an appearance I worry about her and I am now wondering what will happen to her when we move in a couple of weeks…