A Rat in the Kitchen

It has been a quiet couple of weeks. It is the height of the rainy season and it is difficult to get out and do anything. The rain has been coming down pretty hard and regular. September and October are the two months of the year where you know it is going to be a bit miserable and you just have to get through them with plenty of indoor activities. I take the kids to the play areas in Big C or Tesco or we go and see a movie. It is a bit limiting but it is only a couple of months.

Ben made a big breakthrough on his bike yesterday. We took his stabilisers off. It took a few minutes with me running along beside him as he wobbled along but he soon got the hang of it. He is delighted with himself and wants to do more this evening.

Gil has been back in Phuket so we have had a few drinking sessions and a night in Patong. It was the first time I have been in Patong for quite a while. There are actually a McDonalds and Starbucks in Bangla Road now, which weren’t there last time I went.

In the meantime, I think we have a rat in the house. I have seen a couple outside and around the house next door which is only semi-occupied. There had been a few indications that something was inside. A corner of our sofa was gnawed, a bin bag shredded and the rice bucket opened.

Then there was scrabbling in our roof. Every morning we were woken by scrabbling across the ceiling above our heads. I hate rats so I couldn’t have them running around above my head. I bought some of those glue rat-traps. I was going to put them above the ceiling. I stuck my head up through the little trap door into our roof and I could hear scrabbling all around me. I hated it. I was about to lay the traps when I saw the culprits. It wasn’t rats at all. We had a mother cat and her family of kittens in the roof. I was so pleased it wasn’t rats that I was happy to leave them there.

Then Pon saw a rat in the kitchen. It darted into the back of our cooker. No matter how much we shook the cooker, it refused to come out. We have circled the cooker with glue traps for the last week but we still haven’t caught anything. Pon swears she still hears noises in the cooker sometimes so it is still inside. Can rats actually stay inside that long? I don’ know. I think I might just buy a new cooker and throw the old one away.