Fasten your seatbelts

My Karin Tabke entry is done and I've been playing with the Witch book in bits and pieces, trying to get the mood. I had an alternative idea for my heroine's job until I was rewriting the opening the other day and her reaction to something made it clear that really, not so much on the chosen occupation. This book might just turn out to be a bumpy ride.

In other news I'm adding ants to the list of critters Mel is unimpressed with. The last few summers haven't been bad ant-wise but this year they seem to be everywhere. Little sneaky brown suckers. They are staging near nightly raids on the cat food (time for ye old stand the bowls in water trick which I haven't had to employ for YEARS and, to add insult to injury, they seem to be waltzing past my antbaits with their little brown noses in the air. Might have to try a different brand. Damned if I can figured out where they're getting in and I'm not big on the concept of ant sand with two cats sticking their inquisitive little noses in strange places. Anyone else got suggestions?

Mel's rules for spiders: Addendum

As previously discussed, I'm not a fan of spiders. I'd rather swim with sharks than let some big hairy spider crawl on me. If I'd been in that first Indiana Jones movie and had to have tarantulas on me, you'd still be hearing me scream.

The winter and spring here were wetter than they have been for a few years which mean I'd fallen into the habit of drying my towels and sheets in the dryer. Everything else I dry inside anyway the majority of the time, which means my washing line had started to resemble something that would make a good set for some gothic drama. Cobwebs-a-rama. Which means spiders.

But today I got brave and decided I needed to wash it down. The weather is too nice to justify using a dryer. Plus line dried sheets smell nicer. So I told myself sternly that line spiders would all be teeny tiny and it was fine and commenced the process.

Which went fine until, of course, the last four inches when some big bugger scuttled out of his hiding place and went streaking past me. Causing me to jump about five feet backwards (not easy given the positioning of my line). There may have been bad language.

So I have a new rule to add for the eight legged ones.

Rule 6: Stay off the clothesline. Measures are about to be employed. Ignore me at your peril.


PS Anyone got suggestions for spider free clotheslines other than surface spray every so often and not leaving pegs on the line???

A note to the orange cat and the grey cat

My first point: You are both too OLD to be catching mice. Neither of you missed catching mice for the last seven years or so. One of you has nearly no teeth. The other tends to be scared of shadows. What does this suggest to you? Right, too OLD.

My second point: If you persist in the delusion that you are not too old to be catching mice then the rules are that you either;

(a) Eat the damn thing and give it a decent burial in your digestive tract; OR
(b) Leave the corpse outside somewhere. Preferably in the neighbour's yard under a bush or something where no-one (particularly not me) has to deal with it.

My third point: Any mouse either of you can catch must be pretty near death anyway given that you are both no longer spring kittens as discussed above. This means diseased, old or possibly poisoned. You don't want to be having with any germ-infested, stringy or strychnine-laced mice. You have been warned.

PS Corpsified mice are gross. Don't gross out the person who wields the can opener. Just sayin'.

PS A reminder

Because I came home last night and found a BIG one of these smack in the middle of my security door chowing down on a poor defenceless grasshopper (half of which is still hanging on my door cos it's gross and ewww a big hairy gross spider was touching it and I haven't gotten around to cleaning it off yet), I am issuing a reminder of Mel's rules for spiders. I was quite clear about these when I moved in. I'm sure I broadcast them on the right psychic frequency for the local bugs but apparently we have some new kids on the block who haven't gotten the message.

For the record I don't like spiders. I'm fine with mice, rats, snakes, lizards and other creepy crawlies. Even sharks (though I'm not saying I want to come across one) but spiders I've always hated. Eight legged freaks is right. I've gotten better over the years but huntsmen (that's what that is for you non aussies who are lucky enough not to have them in their country, a huntsman) still, to quote Buffy, give me the wiggins. I'm amazed I'm not still standing on my front porch going "eeeeeeeeekkkkkkk". Thank God I'd left the porch light on so I didn't go blundering up to it in the dark (ick, ick, ick). Lucky it ran the right way (aka away from me and around the corner) when I bravely banged on the door with my handy gardening trowel). Sorry to my neighbours for the midnight thumpings.

So Mel's rules for spiders.

Rule 1. I know you have an ecological role to play but play it outside my house. Unless you are a daddy long legs or some teeny weeny harmless money spider, if you come into my house, you will die. This goes double for whitetails and the big icky hairy ones.
Rule 2. Outside my house, if you are of the big icky hairy variety, you'd better stay where I cannot see you. If I can see you and you're somewhere I have to be near (like my freakin front door) or somewhere that looks like you might get into my house , see Rule 1. Death, yours.
Rule 3. My car. Do not even think about it. You will die. I will probably crash. It will be bad for both of us.
Rule 4. Addendum for my current crop of daddy long legs. Some of you are getting quite large and doing freaky things like eating your babies. This is gross. If you get too gross, see Rule 1.
Rule 5. Mum, if you read this, picking up huntsmen is weird and wrong and they will too bite you.

To sum up, spiders leave me alone and I'll leave you alone.

PS UGH UGH UGH