What Ted did next

Well, you may (not) remember me posting a whole year ago about Alice and Hebe making icons. These were the art works in question:

Splendid.

And you may also (not) remember me posting earlier this summer about Ted changing the Badger's computer password and locking him out of the office website.

Ha! Ted's been busy again.

Ted is not so great at catching mice, because he shows up against almost any background, and everybody can see him. But he has a brother, Miguel.

Here he is.

Shadow among the shadows, Miguel is very good at catching mice. 

Sometimes he eats them.

Sometimes he lays them out dead as a special gift.

And sometimes he lets them go in our living room.

We had a wood stove in our living room, that looked like this. 

The top got a crack in it, so we had to replace it. Despite the dire misgivings shared by me and our Alice, we gave in to the longings of other household members for a new one like this.

See the difference? See the shorter legs?

In case you were wondering about the misgivings, they were that Miguel would release a mouse into the living room and it would take refuge under that stove and we wouldn't be able to get it out.

Which is what happened.

With much combined effort and a lot of swearing, plus making crackly noises with bubble wrap and having a shopping bag on hand as a humane trap and a few bath towels as exit-blockers, Alice and Hebe did manage to capture said rodent and restore it to its wilderness home (our garden).

The upshot of that incident was we started to close up the living room at night. But we live in an old Victorian house which needs all the air circulation it can get, especially when it's damp and cold — like, at night.

So the icons went mouldy.

Icons, you see are made from natural ingredients including eggs, so they are somewhat foody — hence, vulnerable to mould.

Hebe discovered the problem and took them into the studio, wiped them down carefully and left them to dry in the sun. On the windowsill, next to the kiln. Where the cats like to sit.

Next time she came by, there was another problem.

This one was okay.

But Ted had discovered that nice foody icon all warm in the sun. And he began to eat it . . .

Diligently.

He succeeded in licking off quite a bit of that icon with his rough, determined little tongue.

Uh-oh.

Ted! Whatever next?