With the container-bound cherry tree now breathing a sigh of relief and spreading its roots through fresh, wormy soil in its new home, I was all set to do amazing horticultural things with the old, now empty cistern, a bag of compost and a packet of carrot seeds, which came free with a gardening magazine. I’m a sucker for free seeds.
I’d had to go home and lie down after the mousey incumbents had scared the bejeezus out of me and caused me to swear loud and long enough to wake the dead or at the very least scare the worms. Still, thanks to Nathan the Hero, they had scampered off to the field behind, never to be seen again, or so I thought.
The old cistern would be ideal for carrots, I’d decided. I don’t usually bother to grow them on the allotment as there’s always a swarm of carrot fly hiding behind the shed and sniggering as the seeds go in. You can almost hear them buzzing excitedly to each other, rubbing their empty little tummies, ‘We’ll ‘ave them!’ They’re crafty little buggers, alerted to nearby carrots by the smell, which is heightened by hapless gardeners thinning out seedlings. Fortunately they don’t fully live up to their name as they’re not that good at flying. If you don’t use chemicals, which I don’t, then the only way to avoid them is to either not grow carrots at all, or to elevate or net the crop so they just can’t reach. The cistern stood on the shed base was just the ticket.
I peered over the lip, the very lip that had kept the mice in their Wall of Death circles as they had tried to escape the previous day and spotted not one little tunnel, like there was before, but two. Two holes and the sound of little mousey voices singing a passable version of the Madness hit Our House. The remaining compost was warm and dry, did they have the heating on? There was what looked like a couple of tiny deckchairs, an umbrella, knock-off Ray-Ban sunglasses. They were back, they’d brought their mates and they were cheap.
They’d even staked their claim to what was now very roomy accommodation with a couple of pictures, ‘Home Sweet Home’ and ‘Home is Where the Mouse is’. Cheeky buggers. They were having a party on my allotment with no social distancing and I wasn’t even invited, it was too much. I took my packet of seeds and headed home to sulk, drink coffee and eat cake, not carrot cake.
I messaged Nathan to tell him they were back. His response was swift and decisive. Kill them, he messaged, kill them all. They’ll eat all your seedlings and pull the carrots down into their den. You’ll be harvesting carrot tops with no carrots, he said.
Oh no, I replied, I couldn’t possibly kill them. I didn’t add that I apologised to worms when I inadvertently cut them in half with the spade, actually I apologise twice. I rescue woodlice that fall into the bath, I run away from spiders, fast. No, I couldn’t kill them, I couldn’t kill anything, what did they ever do to me? Other than give me a few more grey hairs and cost me a lot in swear jar contributions.
Of course I wasn’t about to go to the trouble of planting carrots so they could eat them, I’m not that daft. So it’s back to the drawing board for that old cistern. Maybe I’ll make it into an amusement part for mice. Maybe they’ll invite me along.
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