So it's official. I'm an Art School Mouse. I packed my pencil case and sketch pads and arrived for my first tutorial, bright and early on Monday morning. I got myself a coffee and sat in the cafe area, musing on my new life and what it might offer.
Ooh I was nervous. My whiskers were twitching uncontrollably, my paws were a bit clammy. My fur kept sticking up, no matter how many times I put a bit of lick on it and stuck it down again...
You have to think about where to sit when you enter a room. All the new mice were sitting clustered together at the back of the lecture room, I decided to be brave and sit at the front. A good idea, until half way through the presentation when I really needed a wee (I blame the coffee) and had to boldly walk past the projector screen twice once there and once back. Never mind. I'm a big, grown up Mouse I kept telling myself (I'm not really, I'm very small as you know, but I pretend sometimes).
The presentation basically said:-
'Welcome to the University. If you log onto the Student Mouse area you will find everything you need to know. If you can't log on then you will have to try to find someone to help you. If you don't read what's there you won't know. If you don't do your work you will fail. If you want to WIN you can basically say goodbye to sleep or any kind of life. Now.'
Well I felt a bit shaky after that, so on with the first task.
'The first task is to create a graphic novel. You have one hour to draw up 10 panels and then you must choose 3 and convert them into digital images using Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. You must then submit them in a blog (at last - one word I understood - blogs I can do!).
Blimey. So we watch a film. Some thing about Apes and bones and space ships. It doesn't last long but we have to watch it a lot of times and then draw it.
I don't know about you, but I like drawing birds and butterflies and flowers and pretty things. I don't draw apes particularly. Or at all. But that's it, that's what I have to do. After an hour of attempting I have a few scribbles that look marginally like hairy spiders that have had all their legs pulled off. Time to get them onto the computers.
The computer bit is taught by someone almost as young as my small boss, Edie and he WHIZZES through things in a very fast manner. My small brain is trying to keep up. What is this RGB CKMY business Dpi .tiff kind of file we're supposed to create? you have to what? layer what? Three hours later my brain is buzzing and there is smoke coming out of my paw tips as I try to keep up. On the screen there is a blob. This is going to be a very steep learning curve.
I manage to borrow a computer with the special software on it and I'm allowed to take it home as long as I sign a clause saying that if anything happens to it they can have my skin to make into a small rug in return. I'm not happy about that but needs must. At home I tend to my small boss, Edie, and then stay up for half of the night looking at bleeds and saturation and fill and I manage to do something good (draw over my actual squiggle ape with a furry type effect) and then something bad (realise that I have cut my mountains wrongly - keep up) and then something I don't understand which results in the whole sky turning orange and covering over the 5 suns that are shining overhead (it's art!). I console myself with the fact that I have 3 more days until submission. Yes, three more whole days with only 2 of those taken up with more lectures. I refer to the bit in the electronic handbook where it says you don't have to sleep and I sigh...
Wednesday is drawing day - a bit of a cliche - sit opposite someone and draw them. This is quite enjoyable in that it's familiar. I'm not sure about the person drawing me who seems to be taking a very abstract approach to it. I'm sure that my eyes are not both on the same side of my face, but I may be wrong. At the end of the lesson we are told that next week we need to bring in 10 sheets of large paper. And a stick. Okay.
Thursday - another lecture - this time a different person tells us that we must work hard even just to scrape a course pass and that to get a good grade we must sign over all rights to sleep, rest and eating breaks unless any of them can be multi-tasked into a five minute period, preferably in the library whilst conducting research - only we would have to leave out the eating bit because of crumbs and the sleeping bit because of snoring. We are then told that we have to produce an A0 sized black and white poster of ourselves and embellish it with paint or materials or art of any kind and bring it in for next weeks lesson. Right.
The first problem here is how to get a photograph taken. The photo tech's tell us not to cheat and use any kind of mobile phone device as THEY WILL KNOW! The second is composition - what the heck to do on this photo? In the end I decide to whizz down the hill on my scooter and get Mr. Mouse to take the photo. I think this will demonstrate my maturity.
I dress carefully in a T-Shirt - I plan to stick materials over my fur on the photo and didn't want a bulky coat to make me look like anything less than a svelte Mouse, and wellies - the hight of style and I zoom down the road. Mr. Mouse points his camera at me and clicks away. 'How many shots did you get?' I ask him. 'None. I'm using the wrong lens'.
This goes on for some time. I do run after run and my expression gets more terrified as each time, the brakes take a little longer to apply and make a loud screeching noise. Finally we have the shot - now to get it printed.
I call the University Print Bureau: 'Hello, if I bring you the file today when can you print it?'
'Tuesday.'
'Tuesday? But it's Friday!'
'Yes. Two day turnaround. Two working days.'
'But that means I won't get it until Tuesday and I'm in lectures all day Wednesday and I have to hand it in on Thursday! When am I supposed to decorate it?'
'Welcome to University'. Click.
I am stunned. I ring a professional printing company who assure me that they can print it in twenty minutes for the princely sum of three quid. Deal.
So, one way or another, I have the print and I have submitted the first assignment and it's only 10pm on Friday night - HA! take THAT 'sleep is optional' manual. I'm hoping that this rather heavy first week schedule only feels that way because of the steep learning path that I am on and that the lecturers are front loading us with a big bulk of work now to get us into it, somewhat in the manner of my junior school teacher lining us up at the local swimming baths and pushing us in, one by one, to teach us to swim (assuming we didn't drown).
And I'm hoping that the weeks ahead give me time to do what I love and use my paints and inks rather than sticking stickers onto a picture of myself.
In the meantime I'm having a well deserved sherry.
Artfully yours,
Mouse xx
I'm lying here with a small sherry, contemplating my week so far. So, after a few months of rest and relaxation it's nice to have a routine again, to get up and shower, brush out my fur and whiskers and know that I will see more people than just the post man today.
Of course, there was also something else - call it excitement, call it anticipation... or just call it plain old nerves. Yes, my whiskers were trembling somewhat as I dragged a comb through my freshly washed fur.
Checking my joining instructions on Sunday night I pored over the Welcome Meeting schedule - well, there was no schedule as such, just a time and a place. 'Be in the Auditorium by 9.45'. Okay no problem, I know where the campus is, I know where the Auditorium is, I know where to park the Mouse mobile (say mobeeeeel when you read that, as in super duper souped up car, not mobILE as in 'phone - okay?). However, I consulted with Mr. Mouse, who actually works at the campus.
'I think you'd better check that, Mouse, it doesn't actually say 'on campus'. I check. He's right. I have to go to an auditorium in a theatre in the centre of town. Oh. I don't know this town particularly well, despite living only 20 miles away for much of my mouse life, but I do know it's a kind of... mess. I think it's sort of evolved, rather than been designed, with a huge modern shopping centre near to a 60s concrete monstrosity, and a stone's throw away from some proper good old architecturally pleasing buildings. I check parking. There is no actual itinerary so I don't know how long I would need to park for - worse case all day - £11. ELEVEN POUNDS! A lot to me, now that I am a poor student mouse. I check the bus - where is the bus station - ah - there. And the theatre? Ok. No idea then.
In the end I decide to get a ride into the campus with Mr. Mouse, and cross my paws that I can get a bus from there into the town. A friendly squirrel girl with red hair and enormous brown eyes tells me where I can get the bus, but also that I can walk into town and it will take ten minutes. This being my preferred mode of transport, and the way I navigated Sweden, I set off on my sturdy paws for the walk.
I find the theatre - it is full to the brim of all manner of young creatures, colourful ones, shy ones who hide behind their fringes, the bendy kind that can sit on the floor in all manner of poses, some lone, some in packs, some huddled together, unsmiling and silent. There are some older ones, older than me, looking confident, wise and enlightened. I am somewhere in the middle. A song is playing in my head 'My heart is a-jumpin', my teeth are chatter, scarecrow, scarecrow... 'cos I'm scared alarming...' Ten points to anyone who can name the band - it's an obscure one I'm sure. I feel utterly out of place. We are handed out some 'important information'. Thinking it is an itinerary at last, I grab one. It's a pamphlet showing what plays are on offer over the next few months.
We file into the Auditorium. I sit in the middle, between two very young creatures. They introduce themselves - they are studying cool subjects such as creating computer games and they are comparing notes on halls and their room mates. I can add little to this and so stare at the stage.
We are given a welcome by the Dean of the University (the boss - his name is not Dean), and then the lecturers come out, one by one, and we are told to go and wait in the foyer in our study groups and follow our lecturers. Again, no itinerary and no time to ask if we can go for a wee first. Once located, the lecturers lead us on a walk - they don't tell us where we are going but point out useful reference points along the way 'That bar is open until 2am and do shots for 75p'.
It turns out we are walking back to the University. So, I walked al l the way into town to be welcomed and taken on a walk back? Good job I didn't book that all day parking. Once back we are told that we are not needed again until 2pm. It has just gone 11am.
After a coffee, and a read, and a good old explore of the building I am herded along with the rest of my group into another Auditorium (I can see this is going to get confusing) and we are given a timetable - some useful information at last.
The second day is the actual enrolment. This is fairly uneventful. I log onto the computer as directed, nothing happens. I am sent to sit with a technician who will sort out the technical problems and guide me through it, the system crashes. That sort of uneventful. Eventually the task is complete, a photograph is taken (thankfully quite blurry and my whiskers look okay) and I am sent off, this time, for an induction of the library. This is where they tell me how to get books out of a library. My small boss, Edie, has told me this many times so it's not particularly interesting or surprising to me. Then it's time to go home with nothing else happening until Thursday. It strikes me that they could have, with a little planning, put all of the scheduled items into a one morning induction, but I mustn't go all process management on them - remember, I don't do that anymore.
So I think I have it sussed so far. And as for the youngsters in their cool fur, well they all look normal and shy, but they do have rather large holes in their ears which I just can't fathom, really. And they say 'Awesome' a lot. So for the rest of this week, this will be my goal, to get the word 'awesome' into every sentence, at least three times.
It will be awesome.
High Five,
Mouse xx
Heja Mes Amigos,
Excuse the mixed-up, made up, mishmash lingo. I hardly know where I am. I've been on holiday.
I've not had a proper holiday in years, but since I quit the nine to five in favour of the creative life I've taken things rather more easily, and what a Summer it's been. I've camped in tents, splashed by the sea-side and generally indulged in a long stay-cation. Not for me the jetting off on plane - that was my work life of old - but the discovery of the countryside on my doorstep, with my small boss, Edie, by my side. We have picked blackberries, scrumped for the neighbour's apples (shhhh - don't tell him), tramped through fields of Sunflowers, pounded the scorching pavements in our wellies, in search of local interest points, and practically lived in the garden, painting pictures, growing flowers and vegetables and tending to the fish in the pond.
I have shared a sherry with many a creature, exchanging views on the world, whilst watching the stars and the bats flitting overhead. I've knitted several more big squares of random wool oddments towards my patchwork winter blanket and I have immersed myself in books and largely abandoned technology. How healthy.
But now I'm ready for a new challenge - and a new challenge is certainly coming! Tomorrow I go back to school! That's not a euphemism for a new job, it is actual school. Well, University! I am going to learn all about art and paint and colours and drawing and pictures and how to generally survive with no money for cheese. I'll be there with lots of young mice - much, much younger than me. Mice who will all have cool fur and no small bosses to take care of. The joining instructions have been informative. I am to turn up at an appointed place, at an appointed time, and I will be welcomed and told more. I am wondering if I have accidentally enrolled at a KGB convention - it's all very mysterious. Exciting for the young mice I would imagine, but with small boss to consider, it's more irritating than exciting for me to be informed in this manner. But we shall see.
As for the timetable of actual classes, well all I can say is that it's been sent to me, so that I can work around my small boss, Edie. It is certainly suited to the course as it's in red and yellow. And green and Orange. And some turquoise. All the different bits in different colours mean different things. Some colours are together, sometimes there are big gaps of no colour. There is no actual useful writing on it to tell me what the colours mean. I am sure I will work it out.
So wish me luck - I need to go and iron my school uniform now and try out some 'root boosting gel' to try to get my fur to look as cool and funky as the young mice. Oh, and I should probably not say 'cool' or 'funky' either. The babies will no doubt give me withering looks...
Yours Excitedly,
Mouse xx
Please excuse the dim light on the photo. My small boss, Edie, is sleeping and I'm sitting next to her, on watch duty.
Well it's been an odd time, all this having time on my paws, rather than rushing around 4 different countries in one day as I used to do. Yes, I did say countries, not counties. You can read up on the history by reading my earlier posts if you don't know THAT story.
But most of you here do, so on with todays post. As I was saying, it's been a very odd time. A very odd time indeed and I think I may have gone quite mad, really, but sort of quietly, happily mad. I will try to explain.
I was brought up to be a very well mannered and hard working Mouse. 'When you grow up, Mouse, you will get a job', Mummy Mouse used to say to me, 'and you will work hard and never be lazy.' Of course all I wanted to do was play with my crayons and paints and stare out of the window. I was utterly convinced I could make a living at that! However, like all good mice, when I left school I joined the Rat Race and my staring out of the window days were done. Gone. I carried on playing with my crayons, usually during the long, tedious calls when I was acting referee between the Farmers and Cheese Suppliers, doodling long, intricate spirals and little rainbow sketches of my small boss, Edie, but I usually stopped guiltily when one of the Farmers would suddenly yell across the conference 'Well, what are you going to do about it, Mouse? I want my cheese NOW. Please escalate my cheese order IMMEDIATELY OR I WILL ESCALATE YOU, MOUSE!' in that terribly shouty way. Of course I would get then get into a slight panic and my whiskers would start to tremble as I would have to tell the Farmers that they should, in fact, have submitted their cheese order 90 days before they actually wanted it, as per the cheese production process...
But you've heard all that before.
Anyway, when I stopped flitting between continents on a weekly basis and decided to take some time out to properly look after my small boss, Edie, I found that I had had enough. Enough of rushing around, enough of packing, enough of flying, enough of sitting in an office, or on a plane, or in an airport, enough of bossy Farmers, enough of lazy cheese suppliers and enough of pointless, useless, endless cheese orders, each more urgent and utterly hopeless than the one that came before it...
But still, Mummy Mouse's voice echoed in my little head 'When you grow up, Mouse, you will get a job and you will work hard and never be lazy.' So I decided to try.
I went to something called an 'interview'. I sat opposite a man in a suit (I had brushed my fur and whiskers and everything) and he started to tell me a story: 'Well, Mouse, the thing is, we want some cheese. We aren't quite sure what we want, we want the Cheese Suppliers to tell us. All we know is we wanted the cheese last week and the Management Team of the hotel we are ordering it for want an explanation now as to why the cheese hasn't been delivered. Oh, and they are rather cross that I told them the cheese would only cost a bit and actually, it's going to cost a fortune, so we want someone to come in, make the Cheese Suppliers give us lots of options - we don't want to pay for their expertise by the way, Mouse, and to give the bad news to the Hotel owners. Oh, and I forgot to mention, they are located 100 miles away, Mouse, and we feel it would be best if you go and sit with them every day so that they can SEE that you are sorting it out, Mouse. What do you reckon, Mouse? Are you up to the job?'
THUD. The sound of my head hitting the desk.
I made some polite squeaks, stood up and offered my paw. 'Any more questions, Mouse?' asked the man in a suit. Where can I get a very strong coffee? Now? I didn't verbalise the thought, just muttered a pathetic 'No. Thank you. It'sbeennicetomeetyoubye.' and scuttled out of the door on paws of fire.
I couldn't go back to it.
But how would I live? What would I do? I pondered the situation the best way a Mouse knows how. Over a vodka, with a friend.
'What do you want to do, Mouse?' she asked.
'I don't know.' I sighed. 'All I want to do is sit and paint and doodle and play with my crayons'.
'Why don't you then, Mouse?'
I raised one eyebrow as best I could - I never really mastered how to do that - in an attempt at a sarcastic stare. 'I can't think why, really, although I do quite like to eat and pay my bills...'
'You can do whatever you want, Mouse' she said. 'S'up to you'.
And I thought about it. And thought some more. And did some research on the interwebnet. And filled in some forms. And sharpened my crayons. And got out all of my old, scribbly pictures.
And I asked my small boss, Edie, if I should get a proper job and earn some money, or whether I should draw pictures and write stories and she said...
'If you get a proper job you will stay as you are and nothing will change. If you draw pictures you will be happy. You will use your paws and your brain. Do what you want, Mouse. I will love you, whatever.'
But I could still hear Mummy Mouse saying 'When you grow up, Mouse, you will get a job and you will work hard and never be lazy.' And so I went to see Mummy Mouse, to ask her what I should do. She laughed at me (but with kind eyes) and said 'Oh Mouse, you know, you can choose not to grow up if you like, and play with colours and paints and be happy. You've been a good little Mouse for long enough. Do what you want, Mouse. I will love you, whatever.'
And so I am going to be a student Mouse. I am going to draw and colour and paint and print and learn and read and write...
And I will probably start experimenting with weird hairstyles and funny coloured drinks and I will be able to tell you about all the odd creatures who hang around in universities.
And I will be a happy little Mouse. And I think when you are a creative, artistic Mouse, you are allowed to stare out of the window...
Happily yours,
Mouse xx
I've noticed that the regularity with which I write a new post to tell you of my news often coincides with when I've had my claws clipped. I mean, not when I haven't posted for ages, obviously. That's just when I'm being lazy or when I've got a bee in my bonnet about something or when I have brain freeze.
Some mice seem to like having long, elegant claws and they even go to the extent of painting them or decorating them with little jewels, or even, would you believe, clipping on false claws or sticking them on with the kind of glue that must play havoc with the fur! Can you imagine? I mean in some cases the claws are so long that, well, how can they attend to personal matters? Anyway I shall peruse on that no longer. My claws are neatly clipped and no longer click clack over the keys and snag on my best jumper.
Talking of keys, I've replaced my short lived love for coffee mornings and verbal neighbour bashing for a new hobby. I am learning to play the piano.
I decided to buy a piano several years ago when a good friend and I were discussing the things we would like to do, over several health drinks called 'Vodka and Cranberry'. 'I have always wanted to play the piano.' said I.
'Ooh yes, me too!', said Mr. Mouse. 'Let's have a look at them on Ebay.'
'Ooh look at that one! Shiny!' I gazed at a glossy walnut brown beauty of aged elegance. 'Can you pour me another health drink, Mr. Mouse?'
'Certainly Miss Mouse. Ooh sorry, spilled a bit. There.' He mopped a bit of cranberry health drink off the keyboard with his best handkerchief. 'You should bid for it, Mouse.'
'Ha ha ha! Yes. Well we won't win that. It'll go for a fortune. I'll prove it, look.' I typed in a number.
You have been outbid
I typed in another, bigger number.
You have been outbid
'Oh this is ridiculous. Pass the cranberry health drink, Mr. Mouse. Right. This'll get them.' I typed in a ridiculous number.
Congratulations. You are the High Bidder.
Mr. Mouse and I looked at each other. Oops. Oh well, it's so lovely, someone will outbid us, look, there is only one minute left of the auction. Everyone knows that loads of people lurk around until the end and then bid in the last few seconds.
Congratulations. You have won the auction.
Oh bugger! That wasn't meant to happen.
The next morning over a very strong coffee (those vodka and cranberry health drinks seemed to have sent my head a bit funny) and I had to take out a small mortgage and pay for the piano, and arrange to have it transported from some obscure point at the furthest reaching end of a distant town (it would be there and not down the road, wouldn't it). Well that should be easy enough. A man and a van will do it for a tenner, surely. But no - it seems that transporting a piano is a very tricky thing indeed, because they are sensitive creatures who do not like being disturbed, do not like changes in temperature and are actually quite heavy. We needed a specialist. I 'phoned up the small mortgage company and asked to be transferred to the rather larger mortgage department, and the deed was arranged.
And so many years later, I have the time to play the piano. It has actually been moved a few times since it first came to me, it was borrowed by a family friend who could bash out quite a tune, and then moved back recently and, despite it's claims to delicacy and the fact that I have never had it tuned or maintained, that great old piano still appears to be in tune. I learned all about this on Youtube, you see. Each key is linked to three strings, and each string to a peg. When one of these strings goes out of tune by stretching or warping, the key makes a sound much like my old Mother used to make when she stepped on one of my childhood Stickle Bricks, so you test it by pinging each of the three strings to see if they make the same sound. If they don't, you have to ring the mortgage company again and they send a man round who can turn the peg with a special key until it makes the same noise as it's neighbours. Well mine all sound fine - amazingly. I also tested it against another Youtube video which plays the sounds, and I'm pleased to report that my piano plays a 'C' when you press a 'C' etc. I have no idea how this is possible after the rough treatment and neglect it has received at my paws, but I am not complaining.
I will report more on my lessons very soon. Maybe even before my claws need clipping again, but in the meantime I will leave you with this thought...
...Whatever did we do in the days before Youtube? The internet has a lot to answer for. Especially Ebay.
Musically yours,
Mouse xx
My days used to have a routine to them. They still have a routine to them. But I have to tell you this: this routine is nicer.
I never quite know how I will settle in to 'doing nothing' as I'm usually such a busy Mouse, but they way to properly deal with it is not to 'do nothing'. On the contrary. I have been a very busy Mouse indeed doing... nice things. Although I'm no longer a travelling Mouse, I still have my small boss, Edie, who of course gives me rather a lot of jobs to do. One of those jobs has been to meet Edie at her school every day and walk home with her. Instead of complaining at me, like the Farmers and the Cheese Manufacturers did, Edie throws herself at me for a hug, which I have to say is a joy. I've been clearing out cupboards, making a wood pile for the many, many cosy log fires I've had, scribbling in my diary and painting pictures. And I've also been meeting some of the 'day creatures' - the creatures who are not in the Rat Race and who do different things during the day.
One of the things these day creatures like to do is to meet up for coffee, which I brew in my special little Swedish coffee pot on top of the stove. But how odd they are. Very different from the Rat Race creatures. For a start, they don't seem to hear very well. A typical conversation will be:-
Me: 'Oh hello, Owl, thank you for coming round. Would you like some coffee?'
Owl: 'Oh yes please, Mouse. How are you enjoying your time off?'
Me: 'Oh, it's lovely thank you, Owl. I've been...'
Owl: 'Yes, well, let me tell you about Squirrel. You don't know Squirrel but he caused a lot of trouble last year, you see, he moved into this area of the forest and built himself a nut store, but you see he didn't ask Donkey, and you know Donkey has lived here for many years.'
Me: 'Oh - who is Donkey?'
Owl: 'And then I didn't tell you, did I? I went away at the weekend with Mr. Owl. We went to the seaside. We had some chips. We love chips...'
And so it goes on. After about 3 hours, Owl, realising that there is no more coffee, decides to get up and go home. I am utterly perplexed. My head is now full of information about all sorts of creatures who I do not know and I have spoken approximately three sentences, one of which was to excuse myself for a wee. Please excuse me telling you this but that is the other thing about these 'coffee meetings', you know, liquid in can only be liquid in for so long. I still do not know who Donkey is and why Squirrel building a nut store is such a problem but an odd thing happens. I start to think about this Squirrel and what he has done to poor Owl (even though I do not properly understand it) and I start to form opinions, based only on Owl's opinion. I pinch myself hard when I catch myself doing this, I can tell you! You can't base an opinion on what somebody else tells you? can you?
Anyway, I can tell you, because you are lovely and you never interrupt, or make me drink too much coffee, so, I've been nesting in my nest, taking care of my small boss, Edie, I've been swimming lots - very relaxing, and thinking about what I might do next. But I'm not thinking about that TOO hard just yet.
Oh - and I find I'm already losing my work skills. Like the skill of drinking wine. When you are a Travelling Mouse you find yourself in all sorts of situations where you have to eat out with work friends and colleagues, and of course it is only polite to drink wine with dinner. I have never had a problem with this and was as professional a wine drinker as a Cheese negotiator. Anyway, I went out recently for no other reason than fun, and discovered by my wobbly paws that I need to practice my wine drinking. My fur was quite fuzzy the next day I can tell you.
And the oddest thing - I've gone off cheese...
Happily yours,
Mouse xx
Hello. Yes. It's me. I'm still here.
So why have I been so quiet, you ask? (Go on then, ask!) Well, it's been a bit of a whirlwind for the past few months. Not only was I continuing my international jet setting with the Cheese Orders in Sweden, I was also looking after the UK Cheese Orders. All of this kept me extremely busy. Not because of all the cheese that kept being delivered, but because I had to manage all of the reasons for why the cheese was not being delivered on time to two different geographical areas. It taught me one thing, the complexities of cheese ordering and the delivering of actual cheese is difficult on a global basis. There is no one, particular reason for this but all of the factors put together - the late orders, the difficulty in raising the paperwork to order cheese, the two different production partners in the cheese making process, the difficulty in understanding cheese requirements, the production partners not actually having any cheese ingredients in stock (having now outsourced the cows themselves, to Indian and Bulgarian dairy farms), the lack of production partner staff to wrap the cheese and the lack of any actual cheese distribution means that having a cheese sandwich on the date you have promised your hungry customers you will have one is pretty much impossible. It didn't help matters that the Rare Beast moved into Cheese Production so the standard answer would always come back as 'NO'. I give up.
And I did give up. Literally. I carried on and gave it my best but it was clear that one little mouse couldn't knit the whole thing back together again with goodwill and wishes alone. So I have passed the Cheese Production Order Monitoring on to someone else. I used to work with her before, in my crime fighting days and I think she will be awesome. Here we are doing our handover. I think she will kick some ass although I do worry that she might set a few airport monitors off.
So, what next for Mouse? I think it's time to think. To sit back and remind myself of who I am. Me. Mouse. So to that end I have changed the title of this little memoir to 'Resting Mouse' - for now - and I've changed the look of it a bit. What do you think?
Stay tuned for news of my 'resting' adventures. Although I don't think I'll rest very much. Do you?
Yours relax-ed-ly,
Mouse xx
