Stowaway

We've had a few,days back in Peterborough while Roger repainted under the gunwales on both sides of the boat.

I've spent the time spring cleaning the boat as on Monday morning we realised we had a stowaway on board when we found mouse droppings under the fin rads. I HATE mice, almost to the point of being phobic so a quick trip to Wilko in town for traps was in order. I bought up everything they had in stock - 2 humane traps and 2 splat traps - but didn't have much faith in them catching the little blighter. How wrong was I....... Within an hour we'd caught one in a splat trap in the engine room. It was a little field mouse, totally out of proportion size-wise to its droppings or maybe that was just me being paranoid. So I've now been right through the boat from stem to stern, emptying every drawer and cupboard and washing all pots, pans and bedding "just in case".

Wilko have done well out of this little mouse as I went back yesterday and bought loads of "Tupperware" type storage boxes and reorganized my food drawers and cupboards so there's no chance of any future stowaways having access to food supplies. I suppose we've been lucky that this is the only mouse we've seen in the 6 years we've had the boat.
Roger thinks it may originally have been living in the cupboard in the engine room where he keeps his fishing tackle and ground bait as one of the packets had been nibbled through, then when he'd thrown the bait away it had come inside looking for food.

Needless to say he won't be keeping any more ground bait if I have anything to do with it!

We left Peterborough this morning and are now at Whittlesey on the Middle Levels. We're going to spend a few weeks exploring the Fens, maybe going to King 's Lyn and Cambridge. I'll let you know how we get on.