mmm there’s a toad in my pint

Toad in the dining room (former dairy) at Hedgelands

I recall the good natured competition or rather sharing of the most unusual animals to invade the home and tonight I can add one more beastie to the list of creatures that have snuggled up somewhere within the thick walls of Hedgelands.

As any slave to a cat can tell you, when Felix starts paying attention to dark areas under chairs and refuses to come away even when smelly tuna is wafted in their direction, it is time to foster a bit of concern for what might have decided to drop in for a little visit.

Socks and Sweetie (aka mekis – the most evil kitten in show) this evening around 9.30pm were paying particular attention to the space under an old armchair. Normally a big spider is unlikely to hold their attention that long and mere promise of the T word is enough to lure them away.

mmm rather worrying symptom that. So I prepared myself mentally to match wits with, hopefully only, a mouse. Deep breath and then push the chair away and hope that my cats haven’t inherited a ‘pointer only’ gene.

A flash of brown moved swiftly into the shadow. Damn – it looked rather fatter than a mouse. Rats . . . a rat. So a quick call to Socks and Sweetie to get stuck in and fulfill their genetic destiny at which point they lost interest (typical).

So I thought, I might as well flush it out and hope it goes for the kitchen where I might be able to coax it out the door. Of course, I reckoned my chances of achieving that hovered minutely above nil but nothing ventured . . .

So yet more deep breaths and another shove of the armchair and a Mr or possibly Mrs Toad (quite a big one really) was something of a surprise.

So there it is trying to regain the shadows and I’m in the kitchen looking for something to gather this fat, cobweb bedraggled toad up and transport it outside to the rainsoaked great outdoors where it belongs.

The only thing that I thought gave me the necessary distance to hopefully keep me from squealing like a deranged toddler if it moved towards me was a pint glass. Back with the pint glass and hoping the toad had not found somewhere else to hide and, whew, there the toad is and now there it is scooped up into the pint glass. Rather a big toad that fills the bottom of the glass and how the hell did it get into the dining room? I have a few theories but I’m leaving the renovation to others and I am absolutely certain they will find more charming visitors during their labours.

So to set toad free but not before I get proof that there was indeed a toad in the dining room (formerly the dairy). Oh and she did try to escape and I did squeal like a deranged toddler which sounds amazingly like a toad when they squeal actually.

So a quick-ish dash upstairs to get the camera and just pointing straight down and click the perfect close up of a toad in the bottom of a pint glass.

Trying not to scream too much, as by this time toad was really keen to leave, I gathered up the keys to unlock the door and set toad free into the rain and probably to become mealtime for some inexperienced cat or fox or badger.

Ok, it isn’t as charming as a fox in the bathroom but it certainly is different.

all the best
Michele
PS buyer found but contracts not exchanged yet.