Original Thinkers and mouse, not monkey, business

On Monday I pottered around doing my usual things, and Mas went off to Brent Cross to meet up with an acquaintance. I had been listening to the radio on which there was a programme about Delia Derbyshire. She had worked for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and was responsible for creating lots of weird sounds and music. At the time, on the Third Programme (which became radio 3) they used to put on experimental and avant guarde plays which owed a lot of the atmosphere created to the work by the Radiophonic Workshop. Delia Derbyshire was most famous for realising Ron Grainer's theme tune for the original Dr. Who programmes.

Tuesday, and Diane is off to France. Mas spent all day meeting up with various people he is trying to work with. I walked to Edgware, picked up a little shopping and spent time browsing in the library. I began painting Grimsby, a dog character from Pete's book, but after a while I had to see Barry next door so I could look at his dog's feet, to his amusement.

I watched a programme called The Genius of Omar Khayyam. I was familiar with his poetry, I knew he was an astronomer but had not realised what an important mathematician he was also a philosopher. It is amazing what some people achieve in a lifetime.

This morning Salty bought in a mouse which immediately hid under the sofa. After a lot of cunning tracking I had the mouse backed into a corner (having excluded Salty from the room). I thought I would pick him up and then put him into the garden, hoping I would not be bitten too badly. As soon as I tried this, the mouse ran up my arm with the speed of light, and onto my head. I rushed out into the garden hoping I was still carrying him. Later, Salty seemed to have lost interest in the whole project, so I assumed the mouse had made it into the garden.

I went off for a walk, then later finished off the Grimsby painting for Pete.

The Night of the Great White Hunter

We woke up with snow falling, but later in the day it turned to rain. We made some French Onion soup, with bread and toasted cheese on top, for lunch, and watched a Murder She Wrote in the afternoon.

L J Rich accepted all the pictures I had forwarded for Click Bits, so I cheerfully, and carefully, sent them off again in a higher resolution.

Mas called me while he was watching TV; Salty had bought in a mouse which was running round the room. We tried to catch it before the cat did, but he went under the couch and we could not see him. Later in the evening the cat found him again, so we were rushing about trying to get him into the conservatory with the help of a soft broom, so that he would not set up house in our home. Eventually after we had opened the conservatory door he left quickly.

We settled down to finish what we had been watching, and after a while the cat went out. In a short time the cat bought the mouse in again, but this time it was dead. As it did not appear to have any injuries we thought he must have had a heart attack. The cat in the meantime was very excited and playful, and obviously thinks he is the Great White Hunter.

Letter to the police and electrical problems

I finally finished putting up the curtain pelmet, and having tidied up went for a walk. In the evening we watched 'What women really want' which we have seen before, but it still has some very funny moments.


This morning I found Salty had left a present of the smallest mouse in the world in the kitchen for us; of course it was dead poor thing. Later in the day I walked to Edgware, and posted the letter we had written to the police about the vandalism to our tree. I also bought table tennis balls for Pete's cat Calliope, hoping she would play with them as much as Salty does.


Poppy called in for a chat, and bought some special herbs for us to use when we made dinner; we had previously tasted a meal that she had made with them, and it was delicious. We did use the herbs as suggested, but forgot to add the lemon juice, and somehow it did not taste quite the same.


We found that our TV would not work, and luckily when we called the repair man, he came over and told us after looking at our setup that the video player we had recently bought was causing the problems, so he disconnected it so that we could return it to the shop for repairs. Next Mason's keyboard to his computer stopped working, so assuming it was batteries he replaced them, but to no effect, it still would not work.


Diane phoned to say she would be going to France soon for a few days. Luckily we were able to watch New Tricks later as the TV was working.

Maheena and mouse shopping

Maheena called round to see us. We chatted sitting round the dining room table drinking tea and eating biscuits, catching up on various recent dramatic events, when the kitten, who had been playing, crept under the table and ran up Maheena's legs which caused Maheena to jump and bang both hands on the table which also startled the kitten...both were rather cautious after this.
After this we started talking about the strange people we knew, and some of the things we had done once in Paris which was making Maheena laugh so much she said her jaw ached.

Later we drove over to Boreham Wood to get essential shopping for the kitten, including a mouse toy for you know who! Once he got used to it he loved it.