234. Welcome home!

As soon as the car has stopped I get out out and run to the front door like a mad woman. This over-enthusiastic attitude is in fact a desperate attempt to prove that I have got the right key and that therefore I can be trusted with important things.

While my husband, Baby and the dog stretch their legs and look up to the sky and the roofs and the dog sniffs around I take the tiny key and try the French window. It fits! I’ve got the right key! I’ve passed the test. The door, much to my surprise, sticks a little. In a triumphant show of power and strength and victory I push it with all my might and it gives way and opens with a noisy bang.

‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! What’s thaaaaat???’ 

I am brushing the top of my head with repeated furious strokes, jumping up and down on the spot and screaming at the top of my voice. Something has just landed on the top of my head. I’ve felt something hard and slightly fuzzy. As I am doing my primitive dance to frighten the bad spirits, an other tiny, black and slightly furry thing drops from the top part of the open door at me feet.

‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! What’s thaaaaat???’ 

I quit the jumping up and down on the spot and run for it. I run towards the car where my husband is still looking up into the sky and the dog is sniffing at the ground. He looks down at me now.

‘Réels good to be here again.’ He says. Which gets me worried. The last few times I have been down here he was not with me and maybe he thinks this is the normal arrival ritual. I decide to act rationally and head back to the danger zone.

I can see several tiny black dots this time not dropping down to the ground but trying to steady themselves before hitting the ground (or my head).

‘There’s nest in the door.’ Baby says, showing off her sang-froid, and looking at me matter-of-factory.

I feel a touch embarrassed.

‘Hornets. Not wasps. Have you seen the size of them? And they’re in attack mode.’

I am now in full possession of my senses and as I observe the dark dots I think that Baby is right. They are wasps, not hornets, and they are not in attack mode but rather in a very just-been-woken-up-from-deep-deep-sleep mode. Yet Baby probably does not want me to scream and dance again and she has already found a can of anti-wasp-nest spray and my husband has grabbed hold of the fly swat. Both of them spray and swat in unison and shut the door, draw the curtains and get the other key to open the main door. At that point I do not even care if the key doesn’t fit, I am obviously not up to much adventure. Will I ever be ready for Africa and the TGA?

‘Sorted.’ My husband says.

I send Baby to get the hoover and to hoover everything, including walls and ceilings (bad mum again). Autumn is obviously the season of creepy crawlies and flying beasties and baby needs to learn about that.

I will deal with the kitchen. I start by getting the bin bags from the shelf to line the bucket that we use as a bin. That’s when I notice a lot of tiny bits of paper on the bottom shelf and on the floor. What on earth … ? I can hear the hoover up the stairs so Baby is doing her job. My husband arrives with some of the bags. I point. Speechless. And point again insisting.

‘Guess the mice have been having a party on us.’

I put the radio on real loud hoping that is not the kind of music the mice like and that they will go and party somewhere else. For this week at least.