The rise and fall of Mr Mousy

 Good God, I knew it was a wee while since I blogged, but I didn't know it was that long. Hello again!

I actually was running from October to February, but now I am back on the bench. I wanted to post this great graphic which shows my sharp fall from grace from just before I retired from the NHS until recently.

The round orange dots are parkruns that we started doing every Saturday. Anyway, I was pleased to find that despite low weekly mileage my 5K times were improving. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that as you get older you want to focus more on trying to improve your speed than just knocking out a lot of base miles, and this seemed borne out as I managed to take a couple of minutes off my parkrun time by doing one speed session and one 'other' session during the week and a parkrun on Saturday.

Then I started trying to add in longer runs and that's where things went wrong I think. I did an 11 miler which I got away with and then the following week a 9 miler. My right knee started to swell a bit even though it wasn't painful. I cut back my mileage but it got worse incrementally until it was obvious I shouldn't be running on it.

After doing my head in by googling and trying to figure out what it was this time, I bit the bullet and went and saw a physio at Fasic. She says I'm quad dominant and weak in the hips and I have a battery of exercises and stretches to do. She says don't run until you're pain-free and go back to 5K and then only increase your mileage v-e-r-y g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y if at all. It feels good to have a plan and I've had plenty of practice at not being able to run, so I'm just doing what I'm told. I'm walking, swimming, cycling and doing my exercises. It's been 2 weeks since I last ran and it seems longer and it doesn't seem quite as much of a disaster as it did all last year.

So I think I'll tell you the sad story of our mouse. Well there was maybe more than one. We had a wee mouse scooting about the house. Both of us quite like them, you know, as long as there aren't too many or whatever - the odd wee scamper can be fun. Sometimes he would run along the wall when we were watching the telly and give us a chuckle, or sometimes he would belt round the corner from behind the freezer to under the sink when I was in there in the kitchen in my bare feet boiling the kettle. I'd give out a cartoon screech and he would run into his little house a la Jerry. It was all very much slapstick and light-hearted.

I thought I should get a wild-life camera and try out using it on Mr Mousy, so that's what I did. For the first wee while I got no pictures at all, but then after a week or so I did start to get some images and video. Mr Mouse must have just been waiting to see if the camera thing would chase him or not.

But then....

One day I went into the kitchen and there was Mr Mouse lying on his side. Being a coward I called Peter to help and he being hands on touched Mr Mousey who did a gallop on his side, but didn't go anywhere. We figured he wasn't long for this world and Peter put him in a clean paint kettle with a kitchen roll duvet and while we watched the remainder of our telly program, Mr Mouse passed on to the Elysian Fields. We were both saddened, and for a while the flat felt too empty.

Then we were both ridiculously pleased to hear the scitter-scatter of tiny feet again, and we had a few sightings of somebody dark and fast cantering around the kitchen. Order was restored to us and daily hi-jinx of sightings and screaming and scootering began again.

Until...one evening we were watching 19-2 on Netflix; a tense, dark, man drama of French Canadian police; when we saw a small, almost comical form making his way across the carpet towards us. First we were amused but quickly became concerned as we saw this little mouse bumping into things. He seemed to be blind. He kept bowling around, however, like a badly made animatronics mouse.

We searched our poor hearts for what to do. We could kill him but that seemed just too brutal and although he was clearly very sick indeed he didn't seem to be panicking or upset. We knew he likely wouldn't last long and left to his own affairs would probably squeeze behind the bookcase and then make a smell for days. So we corralled him - this time in a comfortable Hoka box, with tissue paper, kitchen roll and an old sock, and we made him a last meal of oatcakes and almond butter and a saucer of water. He liked the almond butter a lot, despite his current state, had a little drink of the water and then sat in it. While we watched the rest of our police drama, he settled down and had a sleep. In the morning he was lying on his side and had joined his friend in the Hereafter.

We assume he (and the first Mr Mousey) was poisoned by our next door neighbours, although there hasn't been an autopsy or an inquest. We're not sure if we'll ever love again.

I'll tell you next blog if we did or not.