One day in March last year, I was reading in Cygnus Review an article by Jon Kabat-Zinn entitled "Full Catastrophe Living". And, that very evening ...
I went into the kitchen to begin cooking our evening meal. The cats told me they had brought a friend in from outdoors to play with. It was a little brown vole (water rat) and it was hiding from them behind the fridge-freezer.
I pulled out the fridge-freezer and saw the wee beastie cowering. As there was three years plus dust to deal with I got out the dustpan and brush.
Bandit said he'd get the vole if I pulled the f-f out further. When I did, it revealed all the dried hair and cat sick that Bandit had deposited there when he had fur ball trouble a while ago. Well, Bandit went in round one side of the f-f and I blocked off the other side. The vole promptly disappeared somewhere into the back of the f-f.
I dutifully got out the Flash Anti-bacterial Wipes from under the kitchen sink and began to clean up the mess.
Sparkles alerted me to the fact that "Voley" had made a bid for freedom and was now trapped in the corner of the kitchen by the door. Sparkles said she couldn't get to him as there were bottles, shopping bags and a box file in the way; this was brilliant as I could then use all these items to build a fortress around the vole to keep him from escaping again.
I managed to get the boys to bring me a pyrex jug to attempt to secure the little brown friend but it was too cumbersome to manoevre in such a tight space. It was dark in the corner and we discovered that when you shone a bright light, the wee creature became transfixed! Then Chris brought over a glass and card with angels on it, and with these I was able to entrap the vole.
I struggled into my wellies, grabbed the torch (it was dark early that day), fought my way out of the house into the dark night, stomped across the grass to the very far end of the garden and deposited "Ratty" on the high bank above the stream.
I returned to wash the glass and set the kitchen in order before I commenced with the evening meal.
Christopher, closing his session of World of Warcraft, hastily pulled out the internet cable to his PC and promptly knocked off and smashed his favourite green Dartington Crystal tumbler! I divert his anger with the promise of buying a new one - it is replaceable and not worth the angst. I send Alex to fetch newspaper while I retrieve the dustpan and brush for it's second round of duty.
Alex doesn't understand my instructions for locating some newspaper, so I have to get it myself while stopping people and cats from walking in the green chards of glass. I have yet to start preparations for our long awaited meal and I reflect that this is what it is like actually living Full Catastrophe Living!
It may only have been words but I note that I now intend to be more mindful about what I place my attention on during the day !
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