The first time I ever wrote online, it was about a mouse. Here's another fascinating rodent tail tale (stop that!).

This morning I was working at my desk on my work laptop but I wanted to use my desktop, so I folded down the screen and saw, to my surprise, a mouse sitting on my keyboard. A real mouse, not a computer one. I was a little taken aback, and I may have jumped, causing the mouse to fuck off.

This was a little disturbing for me for two reasons. One of which requires me to tell a short story, the other requires you to read this. The story involves two friends that went to a hotel near us for a wedding. They brought their little son with them -- I guess he was about five of six months old -- and they were taking it in turns to look after him in the room they were staying in. But at about 11:30 we got a phone call to ask us to come and get them as their room was inhabited by mice -- one of which had had the temerity to eat A.'s crisps!. They explained that they wouldn't care if it was just them, but they were a bit freaked out with the kid. We totally understood and we collected them and they stayed with us that night.

So we fast forward to this weekend and these two are coming to stay with us tomorrow night in this very room. The one with the computer. And the mouse. We had thought of putting some toy mice in their bed for a joke, but I wasn't sure this was a good idea anymore. So I set a couple of traps and I duly caught a mouse. He didn't die though, and so I brought him outside to release him. Unfortunately while his front half was active and wriggly, his back legs weren't moving at all, so he had to be killed. I'm getting soft. It upset me.

But when all you have is a camera, everything looks like a photo opportunity.

I turned forty. We went to Venice. Yin and then Yang. Venice was sunny and beautiful and we spent a lot of our time drinking. I thought I was very lightweight these days, but I managed not to lose the run of myself, and not to waste my holiday lying around hung over. I saved that for the day after we came back, when I felt a bit wrecked and then I had to got to England for work for two days. So I missed the children a bit more than I had to.

Which is usually a cue for a picture of one of them, but I'll spare you this once.