Micro Macro

Two events, one global, one local, changed the pantry forever.  Both involved mooses; the Strait of Hormuz or blocking thereof, and a moose of the “Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie” kind - not the large Canadian variety.  There is a wee, more sleekit than timorous, beastie loose about this hoose.  In the pantry at approximately 10.30pm.  Usually, there were only tins in the pantry, not sleekits, but there was also a packet of soy flour, which said wee sleekit had apparently been scoffing, bathing, and shitting in.  The pantry was emptied, hoovered and wet-wiped to within an inch of its life. 

When Hormuz was blocked it seemed like a good idea to stock up on tins of beans, teabags and biscuits.  In a blackout, beans-on-toast, a cup of tea and a biscuit, comforts the nerves.  That thought triggered one of those weird memories, when the body reacts, not just the mind.  It’s the 1970s, winter, there are power cuts.  It’s pitch dark and freezing, and I suddenly remembered how frightened I had been.  Before, I only remembered my dad having a ball, despite almost suffocating us with carbon monoxide fumes, boiling tatties for the neighbours on a double camping stove in the kitchen.  They were candlelit, cosy times, with us all laughing together, so that when the lights came back on, we groaned in disappointment, as the neighbours went home to the cold.  That Christmas we got torches in our stockings, so we could read in bed. 

Bought transparent storage tubs so that I can see where the tins of beans are and where the tea is, and no sleekits can shit amongst them.  Although it did shit on top of one of the tubs.  Bought some traps.  THE OMEGA cometh for sleekit.  Meanwhile, I can’t find the kitchen towels.

Poem ‘To a Mouse’ Robert Burns 1785