Mouse tea

My daughter thinks that me and my husband drink mouse tea. real mouse tea, made with real mice.

We have recently started drinking camomile and peppermint herbal teas (the reality), but unfortunately this has coincided with several mouse incidents.

Mouse incident 1. Just before christmas we discovered evidence of mouse inhabitant(s??) in our attic and some of the upstairs rooms. I was surprised, to be honest, at how unbothered I was by this, but thought I should try and get rid of them before they took over. While I was planning my attack (mouse friendly trap v. poison!) our cat decided to step in and do what good cats do with mice. My daughter discovered the mouse lying dead but unmarked in the hallway downstairs one saturday morning.

I somewhat hopefully decided that there was probably only one mouse and now it was gone, but we knew there were still mice about. I phoned the council who sent a man (just 10 minutes after my phonecall - thats why we pay council tax!) and he put down some poison under the floorboards. My 'they do go back to their homes to die, don't they?' was met by a chuckle, and after entertaining my son with a daffy duck impression (My son is 2 and has no idea who daffy duck is) and leaving a list of antedotes should any children eat the poison (reassuring) he was off. So I hoped, were the mice.

Mouse incident 2. About a week later, eldest daughter (again) went upstairs to put on her pyjamas ready for bed. next thing I hear is "eeuuuwwhhh, mouses don't live in houses!!!" . I run upstairs to find she has discovered dead mouse no.2,the disgarded pyjamas in a heap on the bathroom floor had seemed the ideal place for a poorly-feeling mouse to curl up. She had picked up the pj's and the mouse had fallen out of them onto the floor. she wasn't very impressed.

So, she has had more than her fair share of dead mouse discoveries. And yes, a herbal teabag floating in a mug of boiling water does look quite mouse-like. Especially, I guess, when you are 4.

The mug is new, one of a set of four and perhaps more round bottomed and quirky than the photo shows, a lovely present from our nice friend Rachel.