364. Summer dwelling

 Summer is here with a kind of revenge. It is hot, then very hot, then stifling hot and then thunderstorms wash over and we get a chill and we start all over again. 

When I arrive my husband is already there ands been there for a while, with the dog and with R.2.1. 

'Everything quiet?' I ask, wanting to know which animal we have to deal with this year.

'Yes, no problem at all.' 

'Really?'

I find it hard to believe that no-one has settled in here while we were away. Are our nights going to bequest nights? No squeaking in the chimneys, no scuttling up and down the stairs, no scratching under the wooden floors? What kind of house is this? 

'It's fine, really.'

I think he misunderstands. He thinks that I would be unhappy to find out about the animals. But now I am used to them and this is part of the fun about being here. I want my animal this year.

He pulls a face, a face that says I am racking my Brians here, there must be something of importance I have forgotten.

'You know, it was highly stressful that with R.2.1 driving around in a collector's car.'

'Oh yes! I did have an animal in the house!'

'I knew it. What was it?' I am eager to know.

Then he tells me. How he could hear a squeaky noise, a desperate I need help kind of cry. The he followed the noise into the upstairs bathroom and it came from the toilet and there was this tiny cute animal stuck in the water (just turned on by my husband on arrival) and so he went to get a ladle from the kitchen and ladle the tiny cute thing in it. It fitted perfectly in there and looked absolutely terrified. And he took him outside and 'poured' it out onto the grass and the little cute thing ran away into the woods.

Will the house be silent tonight? Will it all be quiet? Has the local fauna finally understood where human dwellings started and animal shelter finished? And anyway where is the ladle now - ?