The mouse in the house

Oh have we had some fun with this little fellow. An apple under the kitchen table was missing a huge portion and the ground surrounding it was covered in red mice confetti, he obviously doesn't like the skin. So we left the apple but placed our newly purchased humane mouse trap next to it. A peanut inside it, we know he eats them ....that is another tale, and we went to bed.
I happened to say to my husband that I might draw him if we manage to catch him. Next morning , excited husband rushes upstairs to say "we got him!". He had placed him in my tall glass vase with some apple pieces to keep him happy. The vase was my idea really, so I could see him and he could not escape. The mouse had leaped out of the trap as it was opened and into the kitchen sink so was a little wet ! I just loved him, grabbed a sketch book and set to recording him.
It is tricky sketching a moving subject but in the end he obliged and sat nicely with his pieces of apple.
We let him free outside in the coal and wood shed. Guess what......last night he had found his way back in, the trap is set ready for him. I think he likes it in our house best.
A big Thank you for all comments. Glad to hear others have had mice too. My laptop is serious, so maybe I might be lucky enough to get a new one for my birthday next week...hint hint to someone who might be reading this.
Hope you like our pet house mouse. He is actually a Long Tailed Field mouse or Woodmouse. He is very cute, I might knit him a jumper for Christmas.

Windy weather

Windy weather, stormy weather is the forecast today. You can say that again, as we can hear the wind whistling through the house. We are cosy and warm with a wood burner. I am having a well deserved rest having just spent the morning helping to fill and carrying baskets full of wood to the coal shed with my husband. The truck load is now stacked high. We had the first snow on the hilltops during Monday night. So now I am now going to sit and draw and paint.
My laptop is poorly, gone to be looked at. I started moderating the comments as I was getting lots of spam in the comments and maybe have got a virus, anyway my screen is just a mass of wavy blue lines. I am using someone elses computer, had to load my photographs here too.
So that is why I have not posted for a while, crossing my fingers it is not too serious and can be fixed.
Back to the drawing. I was walking down a little lane and suddenly I hit a wind tunnel, debris was blowing through the hedge, and I had to protect my eyes from the branches and leaves and bits of dead plants crashing into me. Then as I passed all was calm again. This strange experience made me stop and look back and I realised the road was littered in the blown red berries, leaves and twigs and the hedgerow was stripped clean. I picked up rose hips and hawthorn berries, leaves and some rusty coloured fern. Here is some of my collection, painted in acrylic ink and my fine number one sable brush. It is becoming my favourite brush when I am in the mood to do things slow and carefully it is a delight to use.
Thank you for all the lovely comments and the interest in the mouse. We wonder how many we have? Latest news is a half eaten bun, so now all bread safely in the cupboards. Then I discovered they have eaten flower seed packets in a kitchen drawer and chewed at a new packet of toilet rolls upstairs in the bathroom. Now he/she is getting naughty, very naughty. I now have a drawer of mice paper confetti. But it makes me smile, I can't get cross but I would love to know where my golden acorns are.