Rats & Ice

There was the first real freeze of the year today. I had to go down to the garden and break the ice off the birds' water dishes. By the time I'd got back to the kitchen, there was a blackbird bathing in the smaller dish.

The Rat Man called again today. I showed him the two new tunnels I'd found and he carefully removed the stones I'd placed over them. Nothing to be seen. But when he stuck his hand down the old hole by the wall (braver man than I), he said with satisfaction, "It's taken that one!" Meaning the bag of blue poison.

He's left another goody bag down that hole and will call again next Tuesday. I shall miss our little chats when he's decided his work's done.

Surge

The Rat Man came again yesterday to inspect the state of the Rat Insurgency. It's definitely fighting back. There were signs of extra digging and the bag of poison had been covered up - out of sight, out of mind.

Dropping a couple more bags of blue poison - rats must be colour blind - down the holes, the Rat Man was away again. He'll be back next Tuesday, but I note today that a new tunnel entrance has been opened up further along from the original hole.

I put a stone over the hole and went back to work.

I'm currently working on a picture of Grey's Monument (see above). I repainted the sky recently and that's thrown up several areas that need looking at again.

I'd say the painting is about half-way finished. The Monument needs completion, of course, and I think it, and the buildings behind, need cooling down and pushing back just a little with aerial perspective. The whole paint surface needs a degree of complexity not yet evident - I like a painting to show the history of its development, including the complex build up and scraping away that goes into getting it right.

There's a client who's expressed an interest in a painting of this area of town, so I guess I'd better get on with it.

Rat Man come, Picture go

Sometimes Falling, Sometimes Flying (oil on canvas, 30.5 x 30.5 ins)

I managed to finish the painting on Monday night, putting on the final glazes round about 1.00 in the morning. Luckily, the morning's heat from the radiator dried it sufficiently to get it wrapped up to take to town.

But first - the Rat Man cometh. A different one from last time, older and a little more careworn, but nonetheless effective for that. On his way through the house he stopped to appreciate one of my pictures leaning against the wall waiting to be stored away, and we had a little chat about the difference between a "nice hobby" and a means to earning a living.

In the garden he nodded when I pointed out the burrow and said oh yes under his breath. Then, with the eye of one who knows about rodent life, he quickly located the run the rat has been using through to Lucy Smooth's garden of plenty.

After dropping his weapon of mass destruction down the hole (the poison is called Neosorexa, in case you ever notice it on the menu somewhere) he left with an admonishment to take down the peanut feeders because peanuts act as an antidote to Neosorexa (worth knowing in case you ever don't notice it on the menu somewhere).

And still no charge, unlike in other less responsible Council areas.

The Rat Man had come unheralded and held me up a little. I now found it was too late to take the bottom bus - stop that sniggering - because it would be full of horrible kids from the school down the road, punching each other, calling each other names and possibly even filling the bus so that I and my painting wouldn't get on, even if we wanted to.

Which meant a trip up the hill in the gusty wind, desperately hanging onto a picture nearly three feet square.. No fun, I can tell you.

And the bus ride was no better. The bus was an older model, without the helpful buggy-parking spaces at the front, so I was forced to sit on the long front seat balancing the painting on my toes. And where do we stop within five minutes of my getting on? The College down the road, where horrible older kids get on. They don't punch each other or call each other names, but what they do do, is stand next to the luggage rack in front of me in such a fashion that anyone wanting to get off, or indeed into the bus interior where there are of course plenty seats, has to push their way between the College tossers and my painting.

I spent the next 20 minutes warding off backpacks, carrier bags and little old ladies who instinctively grab for the top edge of a handy painting, and still heard a terrific crack! as someone wrenched the picture sideways sufficiently to make one of the joints complain.

By the time I'd arrived in town and wrestled with the wind-whipped picture up to the gallery, I was worn out.

What joy, then, to meet up with Patsy123 there, newly returned from London. She was cold and I was fraught. A coffee (she) and a pint of Cheeky Wee Beastie (he) put everything to rights.

A Certain Something

Draining the last few drops of tea from his mug, Mr Zip stood up from the Comfy Chair and stared morosely out of the window. The painting was not going well in the absence of his original source material. He knew it must be in the house somewhere, but all attempts to locate it had failed. Progress was, therefore, proving slower than he'd hoped. He would get there, he knew, but time was running out.

In the gathering gloom, something caught his eye. A dark form ran across the path at the bottom of the garden. A blackbird perhaps? No, there it was again, running quickly to the remains of the morning's pile of seed, then just as swiftly back to the shelter of the little wall. And again.

Over and over, he watched in horror as the sleek dark torpedo of the rat collected its provisions and carried them to the safety of it's damnable burrow.

Rat!

I saw the Giant Rat of Sumatra on Sunday. Well OK, it almost certainly wasn't the Giant Rat of Sumatra, given that although we don't know the outcome of that infamous case, we can usually assume that Mr Holmes effectively sees off his foes and anyway, it would be rather elderly by now.

But it was a big rat.

I spotted it as I was helping myself to some muesli in the kitchen. It was at the bottom of the garden helping itself to the seed I'd just put down for the ever-hungry wood pigeons and collared doves.

At first I wasn't sure it was a rat, because I couldn't see a tail, but using the binoculars in the living room, I could see it well. As I watched, I could see it raise up on its hind legs and sniff the air. I could feel Patsy123 shiver next to me.

It wasn't totally unattractive. Unlike the rats in movies, which are always wet and dirty, this was a very clean specimen, with white fur showing clearly on its underbelly. But it was a big clean specimen and I manfully went out into the garden and sent it one its way. It ran off through Lucy Smooth's garden, so far as I could tell.

With luck it might prove to have been just a passing rat, a traveller by trade. But it does mean I've had to stop putting down seed for a while. The feeders are kept well stocked, but the wood pigeon doesn't like the new regime of having to pick up bits and pieces the sparrows have dropped or thrown away.