It still hasn't returned. Richard did call on Friday, and they said there was a problem with the thermostat, but gave no idea as to when we might see it again.
In the meantime, the cats, naturally curious, sniffed around the space where the dishwasher has sat for the past four years and more. They were interested when it was gunky, and also interested when it was clean.
Sophia seemed to be showing particular interest.
We couldn't understand why it was taking her so long to get used to this space. Then on Friday morning, as I wandered sleepily into the kitchen to put the kettle on, Sophia suddenly belted across the kitchen like a rocket, made a leap, and quickly rushed into the dining room. I wondered if she'd found a cockroach, perhaps... it's not the season for them, but I had seen a sleepy one the previous day. She doesn't usually race for them, though, and if she does find one, she bats it around the floor.
She wouldn't let me go near her - any time I approached, she turned around. But I could see a tail dangling out of her mouth. I then heard a crunch from behind the television. Being of a squeamish disposition, I didn't go and investigate. But my great powers of deduction suggested that she must have caught and eaten a mouse.
We didn't find any evidence. But she kept on sniffing around the dishwasher hole (when she wasn't sniffing around behind the television) although, as far as I know, she hasn't found anything else.
It's rather worrying, really. Years ago, we were told that most households in Cyprus get mice at some point, but not if they have indoor cats. Mice are usually intelligent enough to keep away from homes where cats are in charge. And our part of the house is upstairs, which I would have thought would be quite tricky from a mouse entry perspective.
Richard did tidy the boiler room, which is below the kitchen window and might well have had a mouse's nest in it - he didn't find anything. And as far as we know, none of the cats has found any more mice. So we hope it was just a one-off.
We also hope we'll get the dishwasher back some time this week, preferably without too huge a bill...
2 comments:
We were very badly bothered with mice in the kitchen a few years ago. We were 'between cats' at the time. Then Percy came to stay and the very first evening he stationed himself in the kitchen. We never found any evidence that he'd caught any mice, but there was no sign of them after that. They'd obviously decided it just wasn't worth the risk... All going well, your visitors will have come to the same conclusion!
Re mouse athleticism: we had them in the Abbey ringing chamber once - up 92 stone stairs!
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