Day 1

The LTLP climbs into the loft to fetch some clothes that she’d previously stored. The bag has been chewed open and the clothes munched upon. She expresses some dissatisfaction at this.

Day 2

I purchase some mousetraps. I set the mousetraps in the loft, using small pieces of bread as bait. I shut my finger in a mousetrap. It really hurts.

Day 3

I climb into the loft to check the traps. The mouse has taken all the bait from each trap, but has been caught by the final one. I am crestfallen as I look into its still, furry face. I dispose of both mouse and trap, feeling horrible. It is possible that the mouse had a friend, so I re-set the remaining traps, but I have no heart for doing so. I shut my finger in a mousetrap. It really hurts.

Day 4

There is another mouse!!! It has sneaked the bait from each trap, without triggering it. Yay for the mouse!!! I re-bait the traps, shaking my head in amusement.

Day 5

Once more, the bait has been taken with no disturbance to the mousetraps. The little scamp. I re-bait the traps, this time using peanut butter. It says on the internet to use peanut butter, as this ensures that the traps are triggered. I hate peanut butter, but I expect the internet knows what it’s talking about.

Day 6

The mice have eaten the peanut butter, but again the traps have not sprung. I clearly have not set the traps properly. I test the traps accordingly. I shut my finger in a mousetrap. It really hurts. I try some of the peanut butter when I am re-baiting. I suppose it is quite nice, actually.

Day 7

Mice have no idea about PR. If they would just serve up a casualty occasionally to keep me feeling sorry for them then they would be in a far better position in the man/mouse war. As it is, I keep baiting the traps and they keep eating the bait and escaping. So they are fighting a losing battle.

Day 8

A mouse has started building a nest in one of the mousetraps, using loft insulation and bits of cabling from my Sky TV. I re-bait the traps. Meanwhile, I am developing a serious peanut-butter addiction.

Day 9

Success!!! I actually hear a trap being sprung, in the early hours of the morning. I leap up, and climb into the loft. A mouse has the very end of his foot caught in a mousetrap, and is looking at it with annoyance. I look at the mouse, crestfallen. The mouse looks at me. It then runs off, taking the trap with it.

Day 10

Bait gone; no further mice captured.

Day 11

My only hope is that the mice will evolve a fatal nut allergy. The traps are undisturbed, aside from one, which has been moved several feet and then shat upon.

Day 12

Bait gone, no mice. I am running out of peanut butter, as the mice and I have eaten most of it. I move to a chocolate spread model. As yet I have nothing else to report.

I receive an email.

This is unusual. People do not normally email me these days. At one point, during the emerging glory years of British blogging, I would get several emails a day from the people, telling me how wonderful my stuff was, that I deserved a book/magazine contract, how I had changed their entire life etc. etc. (I paraphrase.) These emails have inexplicably dried up.

I open the message, and am stunned by what I see.

The Mysterious Parka Stalker of British Blogging has returned.

My head swims. It is barking mad; like being back in the ancient days of 2005, before Twitter and Facebook, when people with blogs ruled the Internet (not that this is a blog, it is a serious and learned diary).

Would I like, the message asks, to be sent a parka?

The mysterious parka stalker of British blogging is a bit difficult to explain, but basically he/she went through a phase of gratuitously sending parkas to bloggers for no discernable motive or return. Anonymous, unprompted free parkas. There is a useful and quite detailed write-up on Jonathan Cricklybee’s blog here, which will give you some background.

Then, one day, the MPSoBB got his coat and disappeared, never to be heard of again.

Until now.

I think hard before I reply. Although I am always interested in something for nothing, I am keen to attempt to find out more before deciding whether to accept or not. It is a little frustrating, as I feel that I have to ask gentle and courteous questions whereas what I really want to establish is whether the MPSoBB is some sort of con artist who will somehow rip me off by sending me a parka and/or will have masturbated into the lining.

It is a quandary. It would be quite easy to get my used parka sent to a business address or the Post Office etc. so that I do not reveal my own home location to a complete stranger, let alone one of potential liner-masturbating persuasion. But parkas are not very common, and I feel that walking around Norfolk wearing one might then blow my cover. I have no wish to become blogging’s John Lennon.

I am not sure what to do.

“So here’s the inspection hatch,” I demonstrate. “And the chamber is under the garden there.”

The man inspects the inspection hatch. I allow my gaze to wander across the garden. It is a nice garden. The nearly-new lawn, the carrstone walling, the stench of human faeces. We chat a little about the mechanics of drainage.

“Unfortunately, it is backing up into the house,” I report. “Which has made the washing machine unpleasant.”

He makes some notes on a piece of paper. I shiver a little. Like thousands of people, I have had the lurgee, and it is proving impossible to shift.

“We are talking a reasonable sum, I’m afraid,” he says kindly. “We can get a mini digger through there, and then we’ll need a small dump truck to take everything away.”

“How appropriate,” I reply.

There is more talk about single and dual chamber systems. It is amazing what you learn as you go through life. We agree that he will send me a written quote. Having been watching BBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ and learning lots from their negotiation techniques, I tell him that I am desperate and please would they get it done as soon as possible.

“So did you have a good Christmas?” he asks on his way out.