What Matthew did next

Dear All,

I am now on day 4 of my UK Tour, after my report on Saturday which may well have been prosaic, but also did describe how I found the events at BugFest SW. I returned briefly home for 2 nights. Sunday was uneventful and passed off as you would expect, and with a tidy of my car boot, I was then ready to continue the tour.

Monday, having spent hours trying to do the impossible, I worked out that the “View” from Windows might be very pretty, but I have grown to XPect more from my computers and was very let down. Then started the night of a 1000 feet.

Firstly, while feeding Ragyle (my ever-loving canine sidekick) I found a small mouse in the food barrel, jumped a mile into the area and screamed like a girl; trying to hide behind any available object . On finding none there, hid the other side of Mum. I then left the kitchen while the little rodentine friend was removed.

It is not the mouse itself I am scared of - it is the suddenness of it scuttling. I then went to bed in the hope of an early night to find that every time I put the light out, the munching and scratching and other onomatopoeia round my bed grew deafeningly closer. So having worked out there was nowhere else I could go to sleep, and having spoken to my Kentucky friend, I put my TV and light on very loud and sat, hunched in a ball (that makes you sound like a hamster Ed.) in the middle of my bed.

At 4.30 this morning (Tuesday) I went back online to sort my day out, and emailed my sister to put bait down in my room while I was gone, packed the car and headed off on the latest leg on my tour, which - after a day’s teaching and an evening with a Uni friend and the football - sees me sat in a bunk in Exeter writing this to you all.

I am hoping that while I am in Exeter I will get the chance to meet up with 2 other people who said they might be free for dinner while I am here. When I texted one of these people to find out how she was doing, she sent no reply for ages and then the reply to “ so how is your evening looking” simple said “ TOUGH! X” I have to admit I am not sure what that means, but I hope that if she is having a day that is less “TOUGH” she will be back in touch.

As I have to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go and teach again, I will sign off now and hit the send button so Uncle Jon can read and add this to the Blogosphere. Not that I expect it will get to him much before lunchtime tomorrow as the place I am teaching at, and the Youth Hostel, have WiFi that is very slow!

Matthew