A Mouse outside of the Rat Race...

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

Reflections...

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