Stranded in Copenhagen...

When you travel as much as I do, there are bound to be a few little hiccups.


I have experienced delays, diversions, cancelled flights, re-routing via buses on boiling hot days, sitting for hours on end in Zurich airport, waiting for a rescheduled connecting flight and the best yet, turning up to the airport at the defined time, only to find that my flight is not on the board AT ALL.  It's been rescheduled and the airline have notified the Travel Agent, but the Travel Agent, Expedia in this case, have not informed me.  Or any of the other anxious passengers at the SAS desk. Including the couple who HAVE to get to Copenhagen in order to join a cruise around the Fjords.  In a situation like this it's not even down to the airline to sort out an alternative flight as they have fulfilled their obligation by giving more than 48 hours notice that the flight has been cancelled, hence a long but eventually fruitful conversation with an off-shore Call Centre, punctuated with much Bollywood style phone music and an unscheduled re-route via Hamburg.


So, business complete, if you don't count the afternoon of missed meetings due to the Hamburg re-route, and I find myself at the airport on Friday evening.


'Ladies and Gentlemen, (they never say 'and Mice'.  Personally I think this is a bit rude, but anyhow I'll continue with the proper story), we are sorry to inform you that this flight is overbooked and we are looking for two volunteers to stay in Copenhagen tonight, at SAS's expense.  Have dinner on us.  And we will give you 150 Euros in Compensation.'


Nobody moves.  Apart to shuffle uncomfortably and bury their collective noses deeper into books, iPads and snuffling children.  Time passes.  Eventually I have a little think.  I am, after all, a Travelling Mouse who has been travelling to Copenhagen for a year and has never experienced even a sniff of the place outside of the airport.  So, after much time, deliberation and a call to my small boss, Edie, to get permission, I agree.  On one condition.  I want my suitcase. It has all of my best Mouse paraphernalia in it and I want it.  They agree.  They also inform me that the compensation has increased to 250 Euros which can also be used as a travel voucher and is then worth twice the value (wow! A Mouse could go a long way for 500 Euros).


The man has been so nice and thankful that I expect him to take me by the paw, give me my cash, get my case for me and drive me personally to a top class five star hotel and offer me a choice of vegetarian or vegan delights.  Instead he shuffles over, hands me a voucher and some other pieces of paper.  'Here are your boarding passes for tomorrow Miss Mouse.'


'Boarding passes?'


'Plural?'


'Yes Miss Mouse.  You are flying via Frankfurt.  There is no direct flight home tomorrow.'


I feel my fur start to bristle and look wistfully out of the window and my now departing overbooked flight. I am ushered off in the direction of the Arrivals desk with a brief reassurance that my suitcase will show up on carousel 8.


The arrivals hall is quiet. It is the evening of the England / Sweden Euro 2012 match and all sensible Miss Mouses and Miss Mooses are at their homes, beer in hand, discussing the merits of the players (that one has nice legs, I like his ponytail, that sort of thing).


Carousel 8 is revolving reassuringly and I wait. One, solitary, lonely bag is travelling around and around and I start to worry that it may belong to a fellow chucked off passenger who was told that they couldn't locate his bag - maybe it's his and they think it is mine.  I am beginning to regret packing my MacBook, notebooks and all of my clean underwear in the suitcase.  Eventually the solitary bag is claimed and the carousel comes to a terrifying, rumbling halt.  No suitcase.


In the meantime I have been and looked on every other carousel, just in case, and every luggage trolley in the arrivals department.  I am starting to seriously regret my decision to stay.


Eventually it is my turn at the Arrivals desk.  I am given a hotel voucher and metro ticket.  The hotel is 2 stops down the Metro - in the suburbs - not the evening in Copenhagen's City Centre I had imagined then.  However the nice man behind the desk does locate my suitcase for me.  He makes a call and says something in Danish which I translate as 'get off your tea break and get your finger out NOW', and my bag appears in sight on Carousel 7.


In the light of this new experience, I thought I would compile my top tips for if you get bumped off a flight.  So here they are:-


1. Never, ever, pack your most precious things, the things that you are not prepared to lose, in your suitcase if you are checking in your bags for storage in the general hold. I know this sounds obvious but in a year of no mis-haps, I had become a complacent Mouse.


2. Always carry spare underwear in your carry on luggage.  Also a fur brush.


3. If the airline is asking for volunteers, wait a while before volunteering.  The more desperate the are, the more they are likely to meet your demands, which are:-


4. Always say that you are prepared to consider volunteering but only if they raise the compensation amount. Have a figure in mind and don't be too cheeky.  Luckily a more seasoned traveller, the first to volunteer, had done this for me or I would be none the wiser.


5. Before agreeing make it clear where you will and won't stay - in this situation I would volunteer again under the condition that they put me up in The Hilton, on-site at Copenhagen Airport, or in a Central Copenhagen location.  The benefit to you, of course, is that you then get to at least experience a bit of where you are.  Or sleep later.


6. They will promise you a meal but this is likely to be a set menu from the Hotel.  By set menu I mean no choice.  You get what you are given.  Throw them a curveball.  Tell them you are vegetarian, or Vegan.  Or a raw foodist. Or that you only eat Cheese. They will have to make you something nicer.


7. When they say 'we will fly you home tomorrow', don't, as I did, simply ask what time the flight tomorrow will get you in.  Ask very specific questions about the route.  Is the flight direct? If not, where will you be changing? what is the waiting time? You may find that any amount of compensation is not worth the hassle of spending your Saturday hanging about in some airport halfway across Europe and not even in the right direction for home, waiting for a flight which may also then get cancelled or overbooked.


8. When you go for dinner at the Hotel, don't smile or make eye contact with other lone diners, unless you don't mind being joined at your table for dinner.


9. If another lone diner in a similar position does join you for dinner, talk to them.  You never know who you are sitting opposite.  They may be interesting. Swap stories of your experiences; from childhood to travel to music.  Whatever comes up. But do make an effort.  This also helps you to suss out if they are a bit of a weirdo, in which case you can make sure you run as soon as dinner is over.


10. During dinner conversation don't discuss your work or employer, and if you are asked about this, smile enigmatically and remain silent.  Your companion will think you are a glamorous spy and you won't get into trouble for accidentally revealing inside secrets to a rival or competitor.


11. Enjoy it.  Make the most of the experience.  I watched the football with Danish Mr. Elks, Swedish Miss Mooses and others from America, Russia and Poland.  I cheered for Sweden.  They are much better looking. 


With much love and dirty washing,


Mouse xx

Tourist Season

I’m pretty used to this job now.  What once seemed a very strange lifestyle, hopping on planes every week or so, visiting the Miss Mooses, and the Fish and Cheese Suppliers, flying over to Germany to visit Mouse Head Office, working from wherever I can get my Mouse sized laptop to work, is now routine.  I even have a list of all the things I need to pack when I go away.  It looks like this:-

MOUSE'S LIST

Laptop

Phone

Plastic see through bag with toothpaste, hand gel and Mouse moisturiser

Fur brush

Toothbrush

Whiskers Brush

Paw polish

Pyjamas (of course)

Book on Cheese

Cheese

Passport

I have been doing this for a while now and it is all rather routine. However, there was something different this morning.  The first clue was when I approached the Security Desk.  People.  Lots of people.  Everywhere.

Last week when I travelled to Germany for the Mouse Team Meeting, I travelled with the boss.  Not my boss, Edie, but the very top boss of all the bosses.  The Big Cheese. Because I was with The Big Cheese we were ushered with a smile down the ‘Express Lane’ - the part of security where ordinary people are not allowed, there are seldom any queues, and the only items that go through the scanner are important and battered looking briefcases, laptops and executive style long black coats.

Today there were children.  Hundreds of them.  All with pink or khaki tiny rucksacks, embellished with dangling ponies, or Buzz Lightyears.  On was such rucksack hung a small white Mouse, wearing a ballerina costume.  I caught her eye and the communication went unspoken between us.  She envied me my ‘proper’ job.  I envied her that her only job was to accompany her small boss at all times.  However, when I saw her shoved unceremoniously into the scanning machine with the bag, I felt my envy change into something like relief. On with business.

The problem with people who do not travel as regularly as I do, is that they don’t really know how to do it.  A large lady got into quite an argument with the Security man about her bag of hair oil which she said HAD to go with her.  The bag was of indeterminate size and not labelled ‘below 100 ml’ and she and the Security man had quite a discussion about it.

A family in front of me did not realise that they had to remove their various boots, belts, watches and coats - some 16 items in all, and I had to wait patiently whilst all this went on.  Actually I did not wait very patiently.  I was hopping about from paw to paw, muttering under my whiskers for them to hurry up.  

So, this trip? It’s back to Malmo again.  I have a meeting with the Miss Mooses regarding their Fish and Cheese requirements for the next three months.  I love visiting the Miss Mooses now.  They understand that they have to ask for their Fish and Cheese in plenty of time, and that they can’t just buy it from the market but only from the Fish and Cheese Suppliers that Mouse Head Office signed the deal with, and in return I use whatever biscuit routes I can find to get the Fish and Cheese more quickly for them.  Things are improving.  There are still some of them who try to go and buy it at the market, and then wonder why they’re not allowed to sell it on at their farm shops, but generally, we are getting somewhere.

The trip to Germany last week was interesting too.  I went to a presentation in a German University, on renewable fish and cheese production.  It was very interesting.  There was a lot of talk about AC/DC but nobody mentioned ‘Highway to Hell’ or even ‘Back in Black’.  I’m not sure why.  The presentation, which lasted for some 72 slides, was then followed by a lecture in Fish and Cheese support.  In German.  There are not many limits to my Mouse skills but I must brush up on my Swedish and German, although I did learn that in German, Mausie means sweetie, sweetheart, darling.  Of course.

Tomorrow I fly back home to my boss, Edie.  She wants to come here to Sweden with me in the Summer.  In my holidays.  I don’t mind.  It will be nice to show her round, and we can be the tourists for once.  I won’t tell her about packing her fluids in a clear plastic bag, or wearing belts and boots.  I’ll take some fur oil in a clear plastic bag of indeterminate size, and we’ll have a giggle holding up all the foot stamping, muttering, briefcase carrying work people.

Hej dö. Guten Abend, A bientôt.

As always, yours,

Mouse. x

Mouse's advice for travellers...

Mouse's advice to travellers.

1. Never do a double hop flight when you have a cold - one flight is bad enough - never mind two.

2. Never, ever, fly via Brussells if it can be avoided. Even Schilpol must be better that this!

3. Always look for signs for yourself and do not ask anyone, no matter how official they look, or if they have 'Airport Security' on their uniforms, where you need to go.

4. If you are in a Security queue with lots of Arab and Jewish looking people in black hats and traditional dress, you are probably headed in the wrong direction. See point 3.

5. If you go through the wrong Security gate, no matter how long you have queued for, you have to go through the right one - yes, boots off, belt off, watch off, laptop out, liquids out - AGAIN

6. If you are in the passport control queue, and there are lots of Muslim and Chinese looking people, each taking an age to get through, you are in the wrong queue. Look for the EU sign.

7. You do not actually have to go through passport control for a transfer flight at the transfer airport - see point 3.

8. Never, ever, focus on the two teenagers who look and act like Kevin and Perry, and think 'I don't care who I get sat next to on the flight, as long as it's not that pair'

9. Never look out of the window when the plane is landing, when sitting next to the wheels, and wonder how the heck they can land and smoke like that without popping every time and if they ever, in fact, do.

10. Never phone the boss Edie when she is ill and tired and missing her other member of staff, Mummy, as this makes Mummy feel very sad and then she won't come out and get drunk with her old pal Mouse.

Sent to Coventry...

Preparing my presentation

Not all of my travel destinations are glamorous.  In fact it could be argued that no matter where the destination, the insides of planes, hotels and offices are much the same.  However in my endeavours to get the Farmers and Mooses ordering the Cheese and Fish in the right way, as per agreed contractual process, it was time for me to meet with the Cheese and Fish Demand people, the cheese and fish Technical Design internal people and the people who put the end to end outsourcing process together, so that we could all understand how it works and help the Farmers and Miss Mooses order their cheese and fish in good time.  So - it was off to rainy, grey Coventry for me.

I read every process document I could get my paws on and typed up all of my notes from meetings with the Miss Mooses and the Farmers.  All I needed to do is map the demand to the process and voila - fresh fish and cheese when required.

In the room with me was Kitty from Finance, Pony from the Process Office, Dog-Dog, the Head of Cheese Design (we left the fish people out of this meeting - too far for Miss Mooses to travel), Rabbit from Cheese Demand and Woodstock, an enthusiastic young graduate from the school of Cheese who is very keen to get everything documented and supplied plenty of strong coffee in an attempt to get us all as enthused about it as he is.  Pony prepared a presentation demonstrating the cheese ordering process.  It goes like this:-

• All farmers cheese requirements are entered into a database as an 'idea'.  These 'ideas' are discussed at Farmers Board and it is agreed which ideas become Cheese Projects.  
• When a Cheese Project is agreed, a small team of rabbits start investigating all costs associated with the Cheese Project.  Dog-Dog and Cheese Design are involved at this point.
• When a cheese design is complete they complete a requirements sheet and give it to me to raise a Cheese Project Request with the Suppliers (remember there are two of these, those who make the cheese and those who package it and supply the culture).
• Then it goes into the Cheese Order process described a couple of blogs ago.
• The Cheese Requirements are eventually turned into a Cheese Proposal which goes back to the Cheese Demand rabbits to discuss with the Farmers.

If you remember, the Farm Shops have usually gone bust due to lack of stock before the Cheese is agreed and ordered, so to me - the answer was simple.  Engage us, and the Cheese Suppliers at the 'idea' stage.  We can contribute cost information which allows the Farmer to have a better idea of how much the cheese will cost.

Except it doesn't work that way.  Of course not.

At the Cheese 'idea' stage the Farmer doesn't have any money - which is fine if he knows exactly how much of what type of cheese he wants, and that it is in both Suppliers stock catalogue in the wrapping and quantities he requires it in.  If it isn't, and it usually isn't, he must wait until Dog-Dog's design team have submitted a cheese design to the Demand Rabbit and she has sent it to me and I have sent it to the Suppliers.  Who will then advise that they should be submitting Cheese Requirements and not Design. The Farmer only has budget allocated when a complete, costed Cheese Design is agreed and this must include the Supplier's proposals.  How can they, therefore, have a fully costed Cheese Design without involving the Suppliers, which costs money, and how can the get any money without having an approved fully costed design.

Catch 22.

Yes we all understand how it works...

Now my Boss, Edie, has told me that she wants Cheese Forecasts for all Farmers, and Fish Forecasts for the Miss Mooses by the end of next week, to give to the Cheese Suppliers (both of them) so that they know how many cows they need, how many maids to milk them, how much culture to bulk buy in advance and what types of wrapping materials.  In the many, many years before the Cheese and Fish Services were outsourced the Farmers didn't know from one month to the next what they needed - so why this should have changed now I don't know.  However, Edie is a hard boss and I must 'make it happen.'  So next week will be full to the brim with many difficult conversations with the Miss Mooses, Rabbit's Demand team, Dog-Dog and her Design team and, indeed, the Farmers themselves.  And they all think that by simply talking to me Cheese and Fish are ordered and the process is bypassed.  The Miss Mooses, of course, continue to smile pleasantly and pretend none of it is happening.

I think I need a Sherry.  And a Crystal Ball. And a magic wand.  If anyone has these items please mail them to Miss Mouse, c/o Edie.

Happy Weekend my Friends,

With love, Cheese and Sherry,

Mouse x

Delegation...

Pah! I was all set to go back to Malmo for another visit but I was hit by THE BUG.  There I was, sneezing, coughing and red eyed and completely incapable of packing a suitcase. So I had to delegate.


Delegation is always a tricky business, especially for a Mouse with Project Manager on her CV.  Those of you in the business will also know that Project Manager can be spelled C-O-N-T-R-O-L F-R-E-A-K.


Bear and Fairy offered to do the honours for me and attend a very important meeting with the Miss Mooses.  A meeting to represent the Mouse Outsourcing processes - see the last post for details of that.  The Miss Mooses, and especially the Mr. Head Moose (or is that Moose Head?) are not particularly fond of the Outsourcing model demonstrated by the Farmer and his Cheese, and they get around this by simply pretending it's not real.  Bear is fairly experienced in the ways of cheese, fish and Mooses, but Fairy is new to the company.  She is idealistic and pure of heart.  I worried for her safety.  


They started the journey with the same merry heart that I used to start my adventures with - not to mention a coffee and a blueberry muffin.  They reviewed the slides that they helped me put together with Bear's boss and they were ready to present to ALL of the Mooses.


The Mooses immediately saw the benefit in having Fairy there.  Mr. Head Moose (or is that...?) threw up his horned head in joy. 'At last I see the benefit of your department!  We are short of a resource here for entering the fish ordering data.  Fairy - you can be the resource. You can help us.'  He crossed his arms and leant back in his chair, a satisfactory smile on his whiskers.  Fairy, being relatively new, was aghast.  She was there to make sure that they order fish properly and to try to get them to give sight of their future fish orders.  Bear nudged Fairy - 'I think you'd better put them straight.' he said.


'I have to leave now - very busy.' said Mr. Head Moose (or... ?).


Another satisfactory meeting then. Fairy can hold her own - she soon put them straight - but by then there was no-one listening.  


So it would seem that if we don't like what is real, all we need do is ignore it?  Why did I never think of this before?  Next time Moose or Farmer gives me a telling off because of the new limited access to cows or fish, I will simply smile and pretend it's not happening.


Fairy also learned another valuable lesson on this trip.  In Sweden, a 'V' next to a menu item in a restaurant, and marked 'Vegetarian' in the key, means that there is a vegetarian OPTION which can be SPECIFICALLY ORDERED.  Oops - sorry, Mooses.


With Tissues and Love,
Mouse x

Memo...

To: Boss
From: Mouse
Date: Monday


Subject: Travelling and keeping in touch.


Dear Boss,


Please could you authorise a Data Card for me so that I can access the system when I am travelling?


Kind Regards,
Mouse.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Mouse
From: Boss
Date: Monday


Subject: Re: Travelling and keeping in touch.


Dear Mouse,


After giving your request careful consideration I do not usually authorise data cards for Miss Mouses.  Also I would expect you to be in the office during working hours.


Regards,
Boss.


P.S. I hope you are going to Sweden soon - the customer must be kept informed.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Boss
From: Mouse
Date: Monday


Subject: Re: Travelling and keeping in touch.


Dear Boss,


Fine.  Although you keep sending me to airports.  And hotels.


Kind Regards,
Mouse.


P.S. I am going to Sweden today. I will be back on Friday.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Mouse
From: Boss
Date: Friday


Subject: Cheese order - URGENT!


Mouse,


Do you have the Cheese Order for the Farmer?   The Suppliers say that they have not received it and I got a telling off in the Cheese Board meeting.


Please send it urgently.


Boss.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Boss
From: Mouse
Date: Monday


Subject: Re: Cheese order - URGENT!


Dear Boss,


I left you a voicemail telling you to speak to Miss Kitty in Accounts.  She will have a copy of the urgent order you required.  I hope you got the message.


I would have sent it to you immediately but I was at the airport returning from Sweden and I do not have a data card.


Mouse.

Collaborative working...

Well the week in Malmo draws to a close.  Not the easiest day, I am still at the 'Forming'or 'Storming' phase of working with the Miss Mooses out here.  Actually most of the Miss Mooses are just fine and dandy.  It's the Mr. Mooses to whom a mere Miss Mouse is, apparently, invisible.  Anyway, it got me to thinking about business relationships and collaborative working.

To cut a long story short I'm here because of outsourcing.  I'm sure you all know what outsourcing is, but if you don't, it's the selling off of the responsibility for a providing a service and buying that service back from a Service Provider.  Let's take cheese as an example.  To make cheese you need milk, and a churning device.  And you need a culture to start off the cheese process.  Let's assume that the farmer who used to do this in his barn no longer wants the responsibility of keeping cows and making cheese, but he wants it made, to his specification, to sell in his farm shop.  To give a parallel to my current role, let's assume the milk production and churning bit is outsourced to one Service Provider, and the provision of the culture, and the packaging of the finished product to another.  In order to make the cheese, the farmer has to specify what kind of cheese he wants, how much, what colour etc.  If it is a significant cheese order we call it a Project.  If it is a Cheese Project I am the link between the farmer and the two Service Providers.  Still with me?  However, if just a small amount of cheese is required the farmer can order it himself.  Yes. Keep up.  However, the Service Provider who produces milk, actually bought the farmer's old cows, so the farmer thinks he can just ask for milk and get it tomorrow, like he used to be able to do when the cows were in the barn at the bottom of the field. (Actually they are still there, but owned by someone else now).  And the culture and packaging people used to be his milking maids.  But they, too, now work for someone else.  And the milking maids can no longer milk the cows because they work for different companies. So - old process:-

Farmer tells milking maids he wants to make cheese. Maids milk cows and put milk into churns with culture.  Cheese.

New process:- 

Farmer wants cheese.  Raises requirements document for 'cheese'.  Comes to me.  I ask if 'cheese' project is in his project plan.  It is.  I send back requirements saying 'cheese' is not good enough - revise.  Farmer returns requirements document asking for 15kg of Red Leicester cheese, churned for exactly 36 hours and matured for a week in an oak casket, to be delivered by next Wednesday.  I tell farmer he can no longer specify HOW cheese is made as that process belongs to the Service Providers. Nor can he specify delivery dates.  He must plan better and order cheese well before he needs it. He will also not get any cheese unless he raises a cheese order.  Farmer grumbles.  I raise the Cheese Project Request.  It goes to committee to decide if it's one or two Service Providers (if the cheese is not required to be wrapped, the culture can be ordered as a standard product and it becomes single supplier).  It is multi supplier.  Each Supplier examines the requirements and individually send back proposals for cheese components.  I put them together and have it reviewed by the cheese standards board.  When they approve the cheese design I send it to the farmer for approval.  If a new type of cheese is required then this is a new cheese product, so this stage can take some time whilst the cheese commercials (price per kilo etc) are agreed.  Farmer agrees cheese proposal and authorises order.  Passes order details back to me.  I pass order details to Mouse Head Office and Miss Kitty, in Germany, raises the cheese order into the system.  Cheese is ordered and will delivered within the agreed timescales if the cows are in the mood to produce the milk and nothing goes wrong with the culture.  Cheese is delivered to farmer. I issue cheese acceptance forms to farmer.  Farmer signs them. Suppliers invoice farmer.

In the meantime the farm shop has gone bust.

Now - try doing all this again, but this time, in Swedish, with fish instead of cheese.  You can see why the Miss Mooses, who used to have as efficient a process as the farmer with his cheese, get cheesed off with me and think it's my fault.

Well slowly, slowly, I am sure we will make this work, but only by working together, so bear with me Miss Mooses.  I would come to your main Moose meeting and explain it all to you, but the top man Mister Moose won't let me as I'm only a Mouse, qualified only in cheese, not fish.  But we will get there.  But collaborative working is the only way to do it, and the Miss Mooses and I went to lunch together today to start on that very collaboration.

Collaboratively yours, as always,

Mouse. x

Living in Mina Sidor...

Hello!  Well I am in Sweden.  Malmo again.  In case I was in any doubt of where I actually am, my blog pages have all come up in Swedish, so I'm not EXACTLY sure that this will all come out as planned.  Hee hee - inferring that I plan these little blogs.

I am trying to learn a little Swedish - in my office in Nottingham, my colleagues and I who travel around try to learn a few basics in each language - and there is a tradition of addressing our feathered friends 'my duck.'  So - en Francais, Bonjour mon cunard.  In German, Meine Ente.  So my first Swedish phrase? Ta sa mycket min anka.  Thank you very much my duck. Very important.  One never knows when one will meet an anka waddling down the office corridors.

Today I came across a wonderful phrase - Mina Sidor.  It made me think of Tolkienesque mountain ranges, lit with pink skies and swirling mists.  'The elves of Mina Sidor.'  Do you know what it means? it means 'My Pages.' Yes. Really. Queue lighting strike wiping out the mountainous view.  But I suppose that by writing this blog I am living in My Pages, or Mina Sidor.  Philosophical Mouse that I am.

It's very dark here.  It doesn't get light until about 8.30 in the morning and by 3pm it's getting dark again.  In fact the sun makes a futile effort to lighten the sky to a paler grey, but little else.  And it's cold, as you would expect, but so far no snow so I've not had to stuff my paws into snow boots.  Because of the dark nights, and of course having no friends here this time, except that weird human (I get very odd looks when I'm out with her) I haven't really ventured out.  I went to the Supermarket and bought crackers, a lot of cheese (of course!) and fruit and I log in with my boss, Edie, each evening.  She's very demanding.  Anyway, talking of cheese, it's at least an hour since I had some.  Do enjoy the rest of your evenings.

Godnatt mina ankor

Mouse xx 

Meet Miss Mouse...

Hello.  My name is Mouse.  Miss Millicent Mouser, in full, but Mouse to my friends, who are many. Miss Mouse to others.  I'm not keen on the 'r' part of Mouser.  It makes me sound like some kind of wild, hunting Mouse. Which I am most certainly not.

No, I am a very civilised Mouse.  I live in a proper house, with my boss, Edie, who is five years old.  I am a working Mouse, I have my own business helping important companies do things with computers.  I kind of fell into this work whilst studying cheese - I was engaged in a job, fixing a computer which had been jammed up when the remnants of a cheese sandwich dropped into the controls, and found I had a talent for both fixing the computer and for calming down the silly man who had dropped it in there in the first place.

I now have a very exciting job.  I am working for a global company - grand eh?  And I get to fly to all sorts of places, but especially Sweden.  This sounds very glamorous, but in fact means that I know a lot about Airports, and especially about the kinds of chocolate sold in Duty Free Shops.  It's not all Cheese you know!

So here is where I will share some of my adventures - and there have already been a few.  Last week alone I was in airports in Zurich, Hannover, Brussels and Birmingham.  Would you believe that in Zurich airport, where I was stranded for SIX HOURS, there is no such thing as a Cheese shop?  I thought the Swiss were famous for their cheeses!  

Tomorrow I am off to Malmo, Sweden, via Copenhagen, Denmark.  I'm quite used to this journey now and know all of the best stop offs.

I will keep you posted on my adventures!

With whiskery hugs,

Mouse.