Of Mice & Men

On Friday I had to go to the German Embassy to get my signature certified on a document, so to make the day more interesting I met my wife, Debra, at St. Pauls Cathedral.

Unbelievably I've never been there before, and had wanted to go for a while, despite being agnostic I like churches alot. They have a very peaceful atmosphere (even if they are full of tourists like St Pauls), I think it's specifically old stone built churches. Stone buildings are naturally cool anyway, old buildings always seem to absorb what happens in them not to mention the way they get worn away over time. St Pauls is a truly stunning example of architecture and leaves you in awe of Sir Christopher Wren and how man was able to build something like that in the 17th Century.

We of course went up to the Whispering Gallery, which is quite a surreal experience, the walls do seem to talk. It's too busy to hear anything specific, but you hear snatches of words as if someone is sitting next to you when nobody is there. It's like something out of a ghost or horror movie. Then we went up to the higher outside galleries which gave some stunning views of London, the last set of stairs are metal spiral staircases between the outer shell of the dome and the inner structural cone which is both dizzying and fascinating. Below are some pictures of London.

Now to the 'Mice' part of this post. Yesterday morning Debra saw a mouse on our sofa, he peered out from under a cushion right next to her but disappeared before she could catch him with a cup. He must have got in the night before whilst we were watching the England v Sweden match on tv, it had got rather hot in the flat so I'd opened the kitchen door for a while & forgot about it.

Despite several declarations of war on my part it was Debra that knew what to do and we quickly bought some humane mousetraps and set them around the living room. We may have wanted the little blighter out but we didn't want to become killers, we bought a couple of different types as we weren't sure which would work best. The rest of the day was spent gingerly walking around in case the mouse should jump out. Well I did, Debra was fine with it, I've never encountered a mouse indoors before, even in my university days living in a shared house with four other guys which frankly would get pretty dirty before we would clean it.

Anyway this morning we checked the traps and were pleasantly surprised to find one closed. After a stern talking too from Debra, we (Debra) let him out in the garden where he scampered off into the bushes - a moment we completely neglected to take a picture of. Below though is a picture of the trap that caught him, we hadn't even needed to add any bait. So if you ever need to catch a mouse we recommend this kind, which was only £3.25 from Factory Shop in Rayleigh.