CRASH!

Ruth's computer has crashed, so here is a nearly-finished post she wrote:-

MICE, MOVES AND LA MAISON DE JOHN AND RUTH

It has been a long gap since our last blog.
We have spent three weeks in England and a week driving back to Tarbes.

The weather has been terrible everywhere in Europe. We left Tarbes Lourdes airport in a rainstorm and arrived in a Cambridge thick with snow and freezing.

Back at our campsite a family of mice were in charge of the wheely cabin. We are not sure when they joined us. Possibly somewhere in Eastern Europe – maybe they are Romanian mice – or they could have joined us in Sicily straight off the raft from North Africa. It is most likely they are French country mice as this is where we have been stationary for the longest period.
I woke one night to the sound of tiny feet scratching their way round the van. The next night an owl hooted and we heard its claws scrape on the top of the wheely cabin. A search revealed a nibbled cardboard box of biscuits and not much else. Before we left for England I spent some time storing food as carefully as possible and blocking up some of the gaps around the hot air ducts under the cupboards.

In Cambridge I bought humane mouse traps at that wonderful ironmongers, Mackays. We hoped that the mice would have perished in the below zero temperatures in the van while we were away or met their death at the claws of the owl or in the flood that threatened to overtake the wheely cabin from snowmelt and rain, but as you have guessed, they had made themselves more comfortable while we were away. They used the sheepskin for nests, explored the rolled bedding and investigated the cutlery tray. last heard behind the electircal box that works everything in the van.
You can't see them or catch them or persuade them to leave.
First thing at the new home will be une Chatte or cat or both!
We have been struck by financial blow after blow or crash!
Perhaps we will just have to continue our lives as trailer trash with the economic migrant mice!