Winning!

We are winning the battle with the house rats!…we've also just found out that it's not just rats, we're fighting with mice too!

Francis gave me some rat poison to spread around, after a bit of trial and error, I found where they live and over a couple of days they've eaten a whole packet amongst them. 

Yesterday morning Sue came out of her room with a very dead mouse in her dust pan and brush - the first casualty of our offensive. Last night was pretty unusual, we were cooking dinner, minding our own business and out from one of the other rooms wanders a rather large and dazed looking rat! I've seen them in roof before but they're always pretty quick to run away. It was very strange to see one from this new perspective. This one was walking very slowly and not even trying to hide, just trudging across the middle of the floor across the rug.

I had no idea about this, but apparently they don't like to die where they live, so this one had probably said his last goodbyes and, as Francis said, was asking to die. We didn't quite oblige but the very nice guard did: Francis kicked it out the door and the guard came and dumped him in the septic tank (a good dead rat gets the decaying process going again)! 

I took a picture for posterities sake. Note the size of the shoes and rat. Serves him right anyway, his family kept me awake playing above my head most nights!

Help The Aged

Thursday mornings are for the elderly. Francis had a driving lesson so Sue and I had to do it alone. The large language barrier isn't too much of a problem since they've been coming for a while, they know the deal even if we don't. It seems that the order of proceedings goes something like: a bit of chat and singing amongst themselves, a cup o' tea, some kind of activity, something to eat, a bit more singing and then they all get up at once and shuffle home.

They turn up at around 10, though they don't have watches so I can't imagine how they know what 10 is. Once they all arrived 15 was the total head count. So once they're all sitting down, they have their chat, most sing and a few have a dance. They get lots maracas and other percussion from of one of the boxes around the edge of the classroom.

Meanwhile, Sue and I are simultaneously making lunch and tea; the former was some kind of rice, onion and tomato all-in-one thing. The latter was made with powdered milk. Both were made on the BBQ, apparently we don't use our one hob because it'll use all the gas up.

So after the tea, I provided the soundtrack whilst Sue gave them some very simple exercises to do: a bit of arm raising and foot stretching.

They're all very impressive for their ages, all are 70 and over. There's one man in the group and he's 84 and doing very well, thank you very much. There's a couple of the women who really are at a right angle when they're walking, it's from a lifetime of working in the fields bent over. One is completely blind but she's alright too, her friends help her out, even with Sue's exercises.

Whats more is that none of them stink!! Not one reeks of piss and not one is grumpy (well maybe one), they're all very happy and, if not running around, they're all coherent in body and mind. Maybe that's something to be said for keeping active in old age?

Anyway, I was very impressed with old fogeys and the point of this blog is to say that today I felt a bit like a lesser Paul Simon today. At the end, whilst they were doing they're singing, dancing and percussion thing, I grabbed the guitar and started playing. At first I couldn't find the key because I've never played with anyone like that before, but once found it's pretty easy (I, IV and V in various orders for those in the know). I think they enjoyed it and I very much did too.