Hallelujah...........and the RAT!

I've been meaning to start this blog for years and hallelujah, it's finally happened................better late than never. It will take on a diary form about things that happen to me- and sometimes even things that happen to other people. Today's story concerns not just me, and others, but also a big, fat, hairy rat.........
Now, I don't like rats, I never have, but we recently acquired a pet hamster called Lucky (a present for my 8 year old daughter) which has made me more open-minded about rodents in general. So when a friend knocked on my door and pointed out this immobile creature sat in my driveway - yes, said big hairy rat - I felt an affinity with it and failed to regard it as purely vermin. But sadly this rat wasn't in good shape. My friend thought it had maybe been attacked by a cat or bird, but we couldn't be sure. It was alive, but barely - when we approached it made a few wobbly steps away from us, but that was all the effort it could muster.
"Whack it on the head with a spade," suggested one passer-by.
" Lay it on the grass in the back garden," suggested another, "and let nature take its course."
Neither suggestion appealed, so instead I called up the RSPCA who failed to help (isn't this kind of circumstance what they're there for - isn't that what I've donated money to their charity to do?) and suggested I take the rat to a local vet. Which I did. And the vet couldn't see any signs of injury and thought that perhaps it had been poisoned..........only not enough. Thankfully the rat was put to sleep in a humane way...................
The upshot of the story is that it turns out my neighbour had seen a rat run from my garden into hers and because she suffers from an irrational phobia of rats, she shook the contents of my local supermarket's entire supply of rat poison around her garden..............and that's what happened to the poor rat in my drive.
I will now think again about to exterminate rats should I ever need to.....................poison looked like a slow, torturous, horrible way to die........
On a brighter note, it's the Wimbledon ballot at our local tennis club tonight and I'm off to see if I can get lucky in the draw. Fingers crossed.....................this could be THE year to see Murray win...........not that I want to add to the pressure in any way..........

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