Dead Ants!

Oooh, blipfoto's gone all different today!

So, I left you yesterday morning in rather serene mood. In fact, as my friend celiaseyeview commented, I had pretty much died and gone to heaven!

Unfortunately, heaven didn't last!

Despite my best attempts to work hard yesterday I was exhausted. We'd both just given up and were starting to relax during Top Gear, when I heard a funny noise coming from behind the curtains. I investigated, carefully, and found a VERY large number of flying ants making their way into the sitting room at great speed. NOOOOOO!

Neither of us is fond of flying insects, not at all. I grabbed the Raid, sprayed all round the window. Ants were clinging to the curtains on both sides by this time, flying into the room, and we felt totally under siege. The Wonderspouse went outside to see the outside of the sitting room window and brought back reports of huge numbers of the horrid things making their way into the house through the cracks (many cracks, we live in an old barn with very loosely fitting windows). He hurried upstairs to shut the bedroom window and to get the upstairs Raid from the landing. We then simultaneously sprayed inside and out until all the little blighters were dead or dying, shooing 5 cats out of the way because they all thought it was some sort of game and we didn't think the bug spray would be good for them.

I then went for a bath to try to get the crawling feeling off my skin. The Wonderspouse came to bed saying he'd been googling flying ants, and the whole thing was some kind of en masse mating thing. The page on the interwebs described it as a "wonderful natural sight" - we disagreed, and, in any case, decided we didn't want such a sight in our sitting room - after all, a volcano is a wonderful natural sight, and we wouldn't want one of those in our sitting room either.

We went to bed and tried not to dream of ants.

This morning started off a bit tired. I postulated that restful weekends actually made us more tired. The Wonderspouse said that maybe they made us less tired in the long run. I said I was worried about today. He said that was what highly caffeinated energy drinks were for!

After I dropped him at the bus stop, he came running after the car to be picked up again - wallet, with bus pass, work keys and so on was still at home. So we did the bus stop run again and he was late into work.

When I got home the second time the acrid smell of male cat pee greeted me from the door curtain. Thanks Dexter! So I unhooked the curtain, picked up the sodden smelly mat, and stuffed the mat into the washing machine. Oh well, it needed a wash from where Smudge had pooed on it in any case.

An hour later, after cleaning the floor, lifting the vinyl, and trying to eradicate the smell of cat pee, I checked on the washing machine, which was stuck and full of water. I bailed it out, unblocked the clogged filter, mopped up the resulting flood, and put the mat back into the machine again.

And so, by about 1.15 in the afternoon I was finally able to pick up where I'd left off when I took the Wonderspouse to the bus stop at 7 this morning.

I e-mailed my tutor to ask for a maths extension - all this washing etc. is not conducive to getting assignments done.

I spoke to Scharwenka and Scharwenka's sister (who's very much enjoying playing my violin) on the phone.

I ate the remains of last night's cauliflower cheese, heated up in the microwave and served as a dip with a cold sausage!

And then I fell asleep!

When I woke up I decided I was NOT going to deal with mishaps, but have some fun, so I cleaned up after the boys, got them both out of the cage, and played with them on my knee (Moses) and shoulders (Charlie) for a while!

Oh, and I took a picture of what remains of the ant plague!

Easier day tomorrow?

Please?

(Although it's a pretty hopeless plea, since the car's going in for MOT tomorrow, so goodness only knows what will happen - it's 10 years old and has done 114000 or so miles, so I'm preparing for the worst)