Cleaning the upstairs bathrooom, as I vacuumed up the spiders by the window, to any Buddists our there, I don’t kill them, it’s more of a ‘Catch and Release’ program, I noticed the corners of the window were sparkly. I took my glasses off so that I could get a better look. ‘What the heck? Glitter?’ Now I want to stress that is not the first time I have cleaned the bathroom since the New Year. It is now late June. Last Christmas some daft twit decided it would look cute to sprinkle sparkly, snowy looking, stuff on and around the Christmas tree. I thought I had removed it all when I took down the tree on Twelfth Night.

Apparently it is sentient sparkly, snowy looking, stuff that had developed the ability to hide when I took down the tree, travel up a floor, through two closed doors and into the corner of the bathroom window, hide again and then appear 6 months later. Who in their right mind would introduce such stuff into the house? Oh, that would be me. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Meanwhile here is the latest score:
Carolyn 1 – Raccoons 0
For a number of weeks now racoons have been climbing up onto our little raised deck and uprooting my window boxes and planters, attacking my tomato plant and bringing down hanging baskets and the humming bird feeder. In fact somehow they managed to take away the entire feeder and I am a bit puzzled as to how since raccoons have little hands and that thing weighed quite a bit. So I decided to put the sofa cushions on the floor by the patio door and slept there. Sure enough, 11.00 p.m. I heard the little so-and-so’s. I flipped on the light and there was a fairly big raccoon climbing up the support post on one side of the deck and a younger one on the other side. And me. Hair all over the place, wielding a broom like Nora Batty from Last of the Summer Wine, well she always had curlers in but the attitude was the same.

Interesting scientific fact discovered, raccoons can express surprise, shock even. They came back at midnight and at 1.00 a.m. Three times really is a charm, they have not been back since. I have this image of what happened when they got back to raccoon home or pub.

Raccoon to raccoon buddies: ‘Never go near that deck! It’s horrible! I may never get the image out of my mind. The human female up there is nuts!’