The Shawshank Rodention - back behind bars where they belong.

And another thing. . . as if by magic, when I was driving the children to school this morning what should blow across the road in front of me, only one of the Coleraine Borough Council composting bins! FFS like! You couldn’t have scripted it.

So, not only did we not get one when they were handed out free last week, but those houses that did get them are in large part empty and the bins are blowing down the street.

I debated briefly the possiblity of stopping and firing the damn thing in the boot of the car , say no more. However a bit of Catholic guilt kicked in and I thought of the shame and embarrassment of getting caught and charged with stealing a compost bin. It’s not even like it would be for me.

Anyhow, I digress. Last night after I returned home from being guest at the rugby club with Méabh, I was confronted with the news from a tearful Leo that the guinea pigs were still outside. It was nearly ten o’clock. A whole vista of hystrical children loomed before me.

The story so far, Santa very kindly decided to bestow upon our house the little furry gifts that are guinea pigs. To be honest there’s something mildly amusing about the way they kinda dunt about the place. They also chirp at each other in guinea pig language. The one bit I understand is guinea pig for “look at that big bollocks trying to catch us” when they fix me with their beady eyes.

I rather scathingly derided my daughter for being out-thought by a guinea pig once when she couldn’t recapture them. It’s as if they heard the remark and have taken great delight in outfoxing (or out guinea-pigging) me ever since as I try and get them back to their hutch. The wee hoors.

Back to last night’s shenanigans. Leo was distraught because he had been unable to recapture the two animals after they escaped from their enclosure and having taken refuge under the garden shed they refused to come out. He was upset that Sorcha who was asleep would wake up in the morning and, upon finding out that Ziggy and Titan were at large, would be inconsolable. I was surprised at how upset he was. Usually it’s only that bad when he’s asked to do something about the house, or lift his unclean boxers.

My observation to himself and Cáit to man up a bit, that nature was red in tooth and claw and that it was unlikely we would ever see the darned animals again, went down like a hooker with traintracks. My worry was that Mugsy our tomcat or some other blood crazed animal would wipe them out with one swipe of his paw.

So, undaunted, out I headed once more into the dark. This time I spied them, there they were still under the shed, holed up like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, merrily scampering about eating grass as they do, and no doubt shitting prodgiously as they do also with great abandon. Vigour even.

Unable to coax them out from under the shed, the hunt was called off due to bad light as the rescue services might say. Next morning at the crack of dawn Angela got out there first and managed to catch Ziggy. He quite biddably walked over to her when he saw her. Titan is more of a recalcitrant rodent and an hour later he was still at large.

More to the point he had broken cover and left the safety of the shed and was on the loose. We had lost track of his whereabouts too which was worrying. I had heard reports of buzzards over at the University. Would one swoop and have Cuy for tea?

Eventually though, even Titan obviously longed for the green green grass at home, as we spied him  scurrying along and trying to break back into his wee stockade. Finally, the Cool Hand Luke of the rodent world was trapped with nowhere to go.

As he backed himself into a corner I grabbed him and within full earshot of my assistants Cáit and Leo held him up to my face and said venomously  “Titan, you wee bastard.” He looked at me with the beady eyes, his cow’s lick funnier than ever and replied in guinea pig “ha ha you big bollocks I won again.” Well I imagine that’s what he said.

The punishment for the two of them?  A couple of days in lock up in the house methinnks. I couldn’t be arsed with another episode of that.

And  as for the the compost bin? Thanks be to God we didn’t have one on this occasion for we’d have never got the two hoors out if they’d gone in there. Voluntarily that is.

Still, hopefully one day we’ll maybe get one, a bin that is. . . and so the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die. Just like the guinea pigs.