The Silence Of The Moths

So, it was with some trepidation, heart pounding, that I put the key into the front door of my late mother's flat. What lay beyond?

I expected the flat to be dark and humid, curtains drawn and a plague of large rubbery moths zero-ing in on me for disturbing their new squat as soon as I walk in through the entrance.

My hands would try to ward them off unsuccessfully. Discarded cocoons would crunch underfoot on the half eaten carpet and I would stumble. As I scream they fly into my mouth...

Later I wake up to find myself in complete darkness, pushed into the bath, unable to move, in a giant cocoon whilst a giant moth man comes to eat me...slowly....

As you can see, I had thought about this, waaaay too much!

Of course, it was nothing like this. I managed to fight off the moth man that was living in the bathroom and fend him off with a can of insecticide and flush him down the loo.

Seriously though, the moths were just tiny clothes moths and there weren't that many of them. They hadn't propagated that well because: (and I learnt this from the interweb, so it must be true.)

a) There weren't any clothes left in the flat.

b) None of the fibres left in the house, such as the carpet, were natural. Clothes moths only really go for natural fibres such as wool or cotton.

c) There were a few spiders doing the rounds and lots of dead moths already in a few hidden, dark corners where the webs had done their work

So to cut a long story short, I bought two cans of Rentakill wasp and moth killer for less than four quid, covered the flat in it and went back on the Monday to vacuum up the dead bugs.

The whole place has never been cleaner!

So all's well that ends well. *phew!*

Doobrie 1 - Evil Moth Empire 0

A plague on your house!

No pictures this time....They just wouldn't be nice...Read on to find out why.

So, I'm just getting ready to go to bed on Thursday night when I notice that I've had a missed call during the day when I was ay work. I check and find a rather distressing voice mail.

"Hello Mr Doobrie, this is Debbie from the agency selling your late mother's house. We had somebody go to see it yesterday and well, you appear to have a moth infestation. There are LOADS of moths (she really emphasised that word) and a rather unpleasant smell coming from the bathroom. They were even crawling on the walls as we entered. We had to just close the door and leave the flat. Just talking about it is making me itch, could you please ring be back IMMEDIATELY (emphasised by her again) to get this resolved."

*sigh* They had a mice infestation last year which they paid to fix and I had my ant infestation and now this!!! Whatever next?! A plague of locusts?!

Plus the timing was brilliant. Here's me going to bed with the sound of this woman saying "LOADS of moths" ringing around in my head. Nightmares here I come!

I'm not keen on creepy crawlies but will deal with them if need be just to prove that I'm higher up the food chain than they are but here I was having visions of leathery moth wings assaulting me as I enter my mum's flat and cocoons all over the place with half the carpet and funiture eaten away. A lot could have happened in the nine months since I'd last been there. And what about the smell coming from the bathroom? What the hell is that supposed to be? Is that where their nest is or has something died in there???!!!

So I slept really well that night. I had a dream that I was in that scene from "Silence Of The Lambs" where Clarice Starling is wandering around in the moth infested dark whilst the killer is stalking her with his night vision goggles on.

To be continued....

The Great British Summer

Brazil Nuts!

The Sultan's Elephant

So, I saw Mission Impossible III on Thursday down at the Marble Arch Odeon. I thought that it was an okay movie. Nothing ground-breaking but good brainless entertainment and a good night out nonetheless. I was interested in all the bits set in Shanghai as it was only eighteen months ago that I was there.

Then, on Friday I spent some time getting my money's worth wandering around the Michelangelo Drawings exhibition at the British Museum. Also discovered that it's a great place to meet members of the opposite sex! Then read something over the weekend that said that the V&A was the number one museum for meeting future partners. Wow! Who'd have thought it!? I'll have to check that out next!

On Saturday, we were lucky to have a warm dry morning but with rain forecast (surprise!) so I hurriedly walked into London to hunt down the Sultan's Elephant...

As it was it wasn't that hard to find. It seems as if any event organised in London nowadays draws huge crowds. So I walked past Buckingham Palace and down The Mall. I knew that something was going on as the Mall was closed to traffic. So I turned down into Pall Mall and things were still quiet. The streets were still sealed off, so I knew that I was getting close.

Then I spotted my first clue. A row of cars seemingly wrecked by the side of the road. I was so intent on looking for the elephant that I almost walked past without noticing. The cars were stitched together, literally! The rope that was sewn through their bodywork was made to look as if it went into the tarmac too. Tres cool!


Then ahead I heard music. I turned the corner into Waterloo Place and there was a giant puppet of a girl with little kids swinging backwards and forwards on her arms! Getting better...

I then carried on towards Trafalgar Square and just as I walked past Haymarket I saw a sight that took my breath away! It was like a scene from a monster movie. There down the other end of the street coming around the corner was the mechanical elephant that I had been searching for! Three stories high it turned onto Haymarket with hundreds of people milling around its feet taking pictures or just plain staring in astonishment!

A huge childish grin plastered itself onto my face. It was just so f***ing amazing! I hadn't known what to expect and this was too cool! I walked towards it and joined the local paparazzi snapping away. Shots from the front, from the side. How could something so large and obviously so heavy move so gracefully, I wondered?

I knew that it's destination was Trafalgar Square, so I headed there before it got there. By now the giant girl had finished playing with the kids and was now walking into the Square joined by the huge elephant. I got a good central spot and just carried on grinning.

They had closed off most of the major roads around the West End but, in my opinion, it was so original and amazing to see, that it was all so very worth it. Though I had only just seen an hour or two's worth of the event, it had in fact started on Thursday with a giant capsule smoking in the street having apparently crash landed from space and ended up on Sunday with the giant girl blasting off in her rocket

I look forward to seeing what the French theatre group who orchestrated the spectacle plan next for us Londoners. I'm sure they will be back.

Quick Quick Slow Slow

Had a nice bank holiday weekend that started off hectic and then slowed to a snail's pace...

Saturday involved travelling up to Liverpool (three and a half hours to North West England) to see Liverpool win their last home game of the season 3-1. Then a mad rush back to Lime Street station to catch the train down to Alfreton (two hours cross country) in Derbyshire, where one of my best friends live, then a quick change of clothes later, we meet up with one of my other best friends and we head out to celebrate in Mansfield (unfortunately the closest town with any semblance of night life.)


Then started to slow down a bit after all the travelling and drinking on Saturday by laughing our collective heads off on Sunday morning at an episode of Takeshi's castle on Challenge TV that had all the contestants dressed up in monster costumes.

In fact it was probably the funniest episode that I've ever seen!...of anything!!!

Then off to celebrate my friend's daughter's twelfth birthday, after she had opened all her presents, including a wet suit (don't ask!) with a nice local pub lunch followed by the car ride back down to London (two and a quarter hours.)

Phew!

After all that I didn't even leave the house on Monday having one of those couldn't be bothered to do anything-type days. So I just taking the time to catch up on a load of TV and movies.

I've started to get itchy feet again and so have started checking out holiday options for August. So far Cambodia/Vietnam looks favourite....Though it's not as if I can book anything as my new debit card still hasn't turned up at my local bank! *sigh*

It's not all bad news though. I got a letter from the council telling me that I had been overpaying my council tax due to a clerical error resulting in my flat being put into the wrong tax banding!

For the last seven years!!! Yeah, they never noticed.

They refunded me over nine hundred quid! Cor blimey guv'nor! Oh, and in case you were wondering.... That's how I can afford to go on holiday.

I'm all excited!!!

Okay, so they just gave me the money back with no interest but it's better than a kick in the teeth, right?

Tomorrow I plan on popping along to the Marble Arch Odeon (soon to be right next door to where my office is moving...that'll be handy!) to see Mission Impossible III whilst getting high on Maltesers, because mixing lots of chocolate and diet coke gives me a chemical high!

Then Friday I'm off from work a bit earlier than usual to check out the Michelangelo exhibition at the British Museum. (finally!)

The weekend? I have no idea. Yet.... Though it may involve trying to find this...