Windermere is like one of those films about the times After The Apocalypse.
The streets are deserted, and there was a newspaper blowing forlornly along the back alley, in the sort of way that creative directors usually follow with a couple of shots of a rat, scuffling in the dust, so that the audience knows that the civilised world has thoroughly collapsed and that they can reasonably expect either a zombie or possibly a lone and courageous unshaven, but probably sunburned and hat-wearing, hero to appear very shortly.
In fact I have got a rat, although not, alas, a sunburned hero, with or without the hat, and I have had to make my own anti-rat arrangements.
The rat happened when I came in from work the other night. I came into the conservatory to find Roger Poopy standing beside the flower bed with an expression of rapt fascination on his face, staring up at the Swiss cheese plant.
I looked.
It was so dark, and the foliage so thick I couldn’t see anything, but after a few moments something rustled.
It was a high-up rustle, about level with my face.
I did not like this at all.
I am no Winston Smith. Probably I am as brave as most people about rats, which is to say, not very, especially since I have had a couple of un-nerving experiences where they have leaped up at my face. They have not been aiming for my face, at least, if they had they were rubbish because they missed both times, but to escape from my large and alarming presence with a death-defying leap.
Nevertheless it is not a happy memory.
Not wishing to repeat the experience, I backed away rather quickly.
I do not want rats in the house. I closed the door between the conservatory and the house, and lifted Roger Poopy up to the flower bed.
The rat shot away and hid behind the sofa.
I gave up. It was four o’clock in the morning and I was not in any mood for playing at Man The Hunter. I left the outside door open as a broad hint, and the dogs and I retreated to bed.
It had gone in the morning, leaving a solitary dropping under the sofa. I know it had gone because I put poison and a rat trap in the flower beds, which has remained untouched, and Roger Poopy is no longer interested in the flower beds in the conservatory, but has developed a passionate fascination with the hole at the back of the woodpile in the yard.
I think we are ratted out.
Apart from the rat, which was an exciting interlude, I am very pleased to feel that the bank holiday is almost over. The bit that involves my active participation is certainly over. I am now sitting peacefully on the taxi rank, almost completely undisturbed, charging Double Time to any spendthrifts who might want to get in the taxi. There are not many of these. So far there has been two, and it is already nine o’clock.
I am not sorry. I have had my fill of tourists this weekend. I reached my personal nadir last night, when two extremely intoxicated young women collapsed against the side of the taxi, and one of them stuck her head in through the window and bellowed: Yew wanner tek us ter Winnermere then?
The novelty of tourists had worn off.
I looked at her blotchy face, and decided on a truthful response.
No, I said, and wound the window up.
I saw them about an hour later, lurching drunkenly up the hill. One of them was wearing wet trousers, although it has not rained here for several weeks.
In other news, it has somehow felt very much as if it is Sunday today, so much so that I almost forgot about the Clean Sheets this morning, and had to dash back up the stairs, marvelling at my own forgetfulness. Fortunately the weather has been so beneficently lovely that it did not matter, and they dried in plenty of time anyway, and I got on with all of the other Monday tasks with a vague feeling of disbelief, as though I had somehow confused myself, and was ploughing through a hushed feeling of Sundayness, as if the air was a bit heavier and sleepier than usual.
I will be pleased to get on with the week properly tomorrow.
I am ready to restart my non-Bank Holiday life.
