The b*stard who spray painted my house & set fire to my conservatory...

I am writing this sitting sideways at the computer with my right leg up on a stool. Broken ankle, with plates and screws now in it, and a plaster to the knee. Please excuse any typos.

Where to begin? Sitting quietly at home playing on the pc and watching tv on Monday, the first "real" day of my two weeks holiday. The first whole fortnight off for years. I had vaguely thought to myself "I hope the rest of my holiday is a bit more exciting than this".

I've heard it said: be careful what you wish for!

A loud crash and an explosion. I thought something had fallen off the roof of our 3 storey building. Glancing toward the conservatory I saw flames on the roof. I raced outside and grabbed my garden hose and stepladder, (I admit I was screaming and crying for help) scrambled up the ladder and trained the hose onto the flames. Upper neighbours opened their windows having heard the explosion, and yelled that they were coming down. We saw a man running down the field, he had a rucksack and seemed to be in his forties (it was getting dark, about 9.30 pm) so I thought he was a rambler who was rushing to get home before dark. Once the neighbours were in the yard and clearing up the mess from the roof, which turned out to be, strangely, charcoal, I had the idea of driving to the bottom of the field by road to see if I could ask the rambler if he had seen anyone suspicious.

I drove down the road and stopped the car in the road at the bottom of the field, left the keys in and the engine running, but shut the door. I ran into the field but couldn't see anyone there. Of course, he could have gone into the wood by then, or made it down the field and be sitting in a pub. I returned to the car - to find it locked. The slamming of the door had caused the self-locking mechanism to function (or malfunction, if you like!). I leaned my head against the car and whimpered a little, then set off up the hill on foot to get my spare keys.

On reaching home, the neighbours were still in my yard but there was more going on, they had discovered the whole northside of the wall was covered in graffiti - mostly symbols but including a bit of unimaginative vulgarity. My neighbours had called the police by now.

I collected my spare keys and set off back down the field to retrieve the car. There's a choice of routes down the field, I usually cut through the wood and then back onto the field and down some steps, but on Monday I thought it would be quicker to take the path down the middle of the field so about halfway down I turned to head for the central path.

slippppppp crunk crunk crunk

I knew it was my ankle, I've broken it before. I whimpered a little more. I may have sworn. I tried to stand, as the previous time I broke it I had been able to make my way down from Scafell Pike. My foot was just wobbling about at the end of my leg, at a very strange angle.

So I set off to crawl back home, up the hill. Occasionally I stopped to call for help but my neighbours, of course, were still discussing the graffiti and the attempted arson and couldn't hear me. The grass is really long this year, as there've been no sheep in the field, so they couldn't see me either. Eventually I came over the brow of the hill and could see home, and yelled again and they spotted me.

Richard and Tony carried me up the rest of the hill and into another neighbour's yard, one with no steps! I sat on a chair and was wrapped in a quilt. An ambulance was called.

The police arrived. They were in a faff because as they were on their way up to us they had received another call that a mad woman had jumped out of her car and run into the Rectory Field and abandoned the car. We tried to explain! Richard took my keys and went to rescue my car. Apparently at least one other car in town had also been sprayed with graffiti.

The ambulance came and I was slid in, still wearing my green linen dress, now covered in mud and grass stains. Thankfully no dog poo.

That's about it. The rest is hospital tales. I will put that on later. I was truly glad I'd worn a dress and thus proper knickers as I sat in the Emergency Room being plastered!

And I'm home now after 3 days in hospital. But I'm a bit scared with the crutches. I expect I shall get used to them.

(I've changed all my mis-spellings of graffitti to graffiti, at least I think I've changed them all. Sorry)

Could you kill them? 15.6.08

Told my friends in the pub about the large mouse/small rat episode. Apparently I was so dramatic about it they thought I'd either got cancer or was about to emigrate, so the rat thing wasn't so startling. However, now I've been told to report it to South Shropshire District Council so someone called Ken the Rat can come and sort it out. But I flushed it away, so it's dead, and it probably whooshed by its whole family out scouring the sewer looking for it.

I still haven't dared go over to number 5, empty for five months, to see if they've popped up there.

The other thing I haven't done is work out how to give friends a link to this blog. Still, I quite enjoy doing it just for me.

13th June - The rat in the toilet

13th June 2008 - the 18th anniversary of my dad's death - Stan Pollock (John Stanley William Pollock) - throat cancer, aged 72. I can't believe it's 18 years since we spoke, but I do dream about him, and my mum, quite often. They are always younger and healthy in my dreams.

On the night of 12th/13th June I had finished work for a one week break. I was relaxed and slept well, waking occasionally to reposition myself around the cats on the bed, and dropping back to sleep. I had a strange dream that I was walking around a garden. It seemed to be the garden to a new house I had moved to, and I came across a small pond in which half a dozen mice were swimming. Amazed, I commented that I was surprised how soon the mice had settled in and learned to swim.

My bathroom is dark, having only a small high window obscured by dried flowers and cobwebs. I hobbled to the toilet when I woke at 6 am on Friday morning, struggling as usual to open the bathroom door which I keep locked so the cats cannot do their killing on my furry bathside rug. Lifting the lid of the toilet I was mildly surprised to see a floating lump in there - I tend to be healthy bowel-wise and don't produce floaters, and anyway I always flush the toilet before putting the lid down. Anyway, I sat down, did the necessary, and stood to turn and flush. Focussing better, as I had now been up for a few minutes, I noticed eyes, nose and whiskers on the floater. It was a mouse! A large mouse. I gingerly touched it but it was dead, so I flushed it away.

Then I started to wonder.

The door was shut and the lid was down, how could a mouse get into my toilet?
More strangely, why did I dream about mice swimming?

Now (2 days later) I accept that the large mouse was probably a small rat, and I am nervous of going to the toilet at all having googled "rat in toilet" - DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE A STRONG STOMACH AND AN UPSTAIRS TOILET.

more to come.